What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a valuable digital tool for building a brand and meeting the needs of the modern customer to both gain and keep their attention online. It has grown incredibly over the past few years.

Content marketing has dominated digital marketing efforts for the past decade as brands have become more adept at attracting prospective customers through engagement online. As the industry has matured, brands have begun to better understand users’ online behavior, thus empowering them to create strong sales funnels and integrate content marketing more thoroughly with the rest of their marketing strategy.

As marketers delve deeper than the surface understanding of keyword optimization and user intent, they often find themselves running into new questions. We have brought together some of the most common questions we have received to create an advanced content marketing guide.

What do long-tail keywords vs medium-tail vs short-tail keywords mean?

There has been some buzz lately surrounding different types of keywords, namely short-tail keywords versus long-tail keywords versus medium-tail or torso keywords. Beginning a few years ago, people began to discuss the importance of long-tail keywords while working on content marketing.

Marketers generally understood that short-tail or head-term keywords, like health, lawyer, real estate, insurance, travel, etc. had become overly competitive on both a paid and organic basis. Not only were too many websites trying to gain top ranking results on these keywords, but in instances of local SEO, these keywords could even end up attracting people to the site who likely would never be customers in that local area. If an organic restaurant in Tucson, for example, ranks highly for “restaurant” and attracts traffic searching for a place to eat in Toledo, this traffic would provide them with little financial benefit.

This then leaves long-tail keywords and medium-tail keywords. Both of these types of keywords include additional words that provide context for the keyword, helping brands to more accurately target their audience and increase their chances of ranking well for their content marketing efforts. For example, for our restaurant above, the keyword “organic restaurant in Tucson” would provide them with far superior traffic. The main difference between ‘medium’ and ‘long-tail’ lies in simply how many words are included in the keyword phrase.

Long-tail keywords are generally understood as containing three or more words, whereas medium-tail keywords have more like two to three words. This is an important note for proper content marketing. The goal with the medium-tail keyword is to maximize the audience for the keyword while not compromising the level of precision and still increasing the chances of ranking well for the phrase and attracting the right audience.

Many people will not even make this distinction between types of keywords, often referring to them all as long-tail keywords. On the BrightEdge platform, for example, we often suggest long-tail keywords, but some of the suggestions often contain only two to three words, which could be considered medium-tail keywords for those who prefer to differentiate.

Should I delete or redirect pages that do not get strong traffic? How will this impact SEO?

When it comes to auditing your site while implementing a content marketing strategy, you will likely discover that some pages do not get much traffic and have little importance from an SEO standpoint. When this happens, we often have customers ask us if it would be worth deleting these particular pages; if taking this step would help or hurt their SEO.

In generally, we find that yes, redirecting these poorly engaging pages can be helpful for content marketing and SEO if they have any internal or external links. One, it helps to reduce the potential for pages competing for the same or similar keywords. It also reduces index bloat and helps to ensure that the Google algorithm focuses on the pages for mobile and desktop that have the most value for your site and your prospective customers.

To do this content marketing strategy successfully, however, brands need to make sure that they set it up correctly. This means looking for content that has not been needed in at least a year. You want to make sure your content marketing plan targets only pages with low views and no rankings of value. Use a 301 redirect to do this.

When looking at this potentially deletable content, you also want to check if the content could potentially be updated and if it might then offer value for prospective customers. The first priority for this content marketing step should be to update content when possible, as it will have the advantage of being and established page. If the content has no value, however, then it should be redirected.

When you want to exclude content, make sure that you always set up a 301 redirect, even if no one has visited the page in years. Deleting any page on your site without setting up a 301 has the potential to create a very poor user experience, and if Google detects it, it will definitely hurt the reputation of the site with a potential 404 error.

Make sure that the 301 redirect takes people to another page that is related to the deleted page. Taking people to the homepage will hurt the user experience of anyone who lands on the redirect. Instead, try your best to understand what their user intent may have been if they sought out the deleted page and redirect them to content that will help them and your content marketing efforts.

How often should I refresh my content?

The art of refreshing content also frequently comes up for customers who want to better manage their online material and content marketing. Content that was published years ago tends to not garner as much attention from customers or search engines, both of whom assume that the material is out-of-date and thus offers little value. Given the demands on brands to continually publish new material, however, finding the time to constantly refresh old content can feel like a burden.

What we suggest for is this:

• Look for content that is older than two to three years or deals with material that has otherwise gone through a public update. Spend maybe two hours per week refreshing this type of material. If that content marketing topic has changed drastically enough to warrant publishing new content, add a link so that people can see the updated piece if they land on the older one.
• If you need to delete content because it has become so outdated that a simple refresh will not suffice for your content marketing strategy, make sure you add a 301 redirect. Do not let your users find a 404 error for any reason.
• Use the BrightEdge platform to regularly see the recommendations for all the pages on your site. As you follow these recommendations, many pages will naturally be updated with the latest SEO best practices.

How should I stop keyword cannibalization?

With marketers perpetually producing a stream of content, keyword competition often arises within a site. Understanding the potential dangers that can occur from this situation--known as keyword cannibalization, however, makes it clear why brands generally want to avoid this practice while executing on content marketing.

When keyword competition does not disrupt the ranking of your pages, generally, it is not something to become terribly worried about. Sometimes, however, brands might find that during content marketing, they accidentally rank lower quality pages higher than their targeted pages. For example, they might find a blog post ranks higher than a high-performing landing page. This can disrupt conversion rates.

Lower quality pages can also damage brand reputation as it might be the first interaction with your brand that a particular customer has. It will also result in you being your own competitor, with your own site hindering your click through rates.

To combat this keyword cannibalization during content marketing practices, generally, we recommend:

• Saving your highest-value keywords for your targeted content and focusing on alternates for non-converting pages
• If you find that keyword cannibalization has already occurred, consider restructuring the pages to make the higher ranking page better reflect your brand and offer opportunities for conversion
• If this cannot be done, consider deoptimizing the page by removing keywords from title tag and H1 and reworking the text to adjust the optimization of the page you do not want ranked higher
• If nothing else works, delete the page that cannibalizes the content and redirect people to the preferred page. If you resort to this measure, verify that your 301 has been set up correctly, as it will directly impact the success of a high-conversion page.

Content marketing continues to play a critical role in site development and optimization. As brands begin to develop strategies and dive deeper into this form of marketing, however, they may find themselves plagued with questions pertaining to particular situations that arise. Review these ideas in our advanced content marketing ebook to see if they help you better understand the next level of content marketing.

Topic Expertise and Google Rankings

Google’s Quality Guidelines says a lot about Topic Expertise. However did you know that expertise in a topic is a sliding scale that depends on the topic?

Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines in the section about E-A-T (3.2) advises:

“Some topics require less formal expertise.”

This article explores what “less formal expertise” means for Google rank and how it applies to ranking in competitive Your Money and Your Life (YMYL) categories.

Sliding Scale of Expertise in YMYL Categories

Even within YMYL categories, there are levels of search intent within those categories where Google ranks web pages from news organizations and even a well written blog post that is supported by authoritative links from around the web.

This Google rank sliding scale of expertise is visible in the search results and it is discussed in Google's Search Quality Raters guidelines.

While the Search Quality Raters Guidelines are not a template for how to do SEO for Google rank, the guidelines do present ideas of what position Google is taking in terms of search quality.

Thus we know that Your Money and Your Life (YMYL) categories are held to a high standard. But that standard for Google rank embraces a wide spectrum, like a sliding scale, and is less strict than is generally acknowledged.

This is what it says in Section 3.2: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T):

“Some topics require less formal expertise. Many people write extremely detailed, helpful reviews of products or restaurants. Many people share tips and life experiences on forums, blogs, etc. These ordinary people may be considered experts in topics where they have life experience.

If it seems as if the person creating the content has the type and amount of life experience to make him or her an “expert” on the topic, we will value this “everyday expertise” and not penalize the person/webpage/website for not having “formal” education or training in the field.

It’s even possible to have everyday expertise in YMYL topics. For example, there are forums and support pages for people with specific diseases. Sharing personal experience is a form of everyday expertise. Consider this example.

Here, forum participants are telling how long their loved ones lived with liver cancer. This is an example of sharing personal experiences in which they are experts not medical advice." 

Further down in that section Google advises more on Google rank:

"Think about the topic of the page. What kind of expertise is required for the page to achieve its purpose well? The standard for expertise depends on the topic of the page.”

It is clear in the Search Quality Raters Guidelines (and in Google's search results) that some topics within YMYL categories can be answered with everyday expertise. There is not one standard for YMYL categories when it comes to Google rank but different levels of expertise.

It's important to set reasonable expectations for Google rank because certain queries are tightly focused on established facts. For medical queries that demand a scientific medical answer that means it's going to be held to a higher Google rank standard.

The sentence following the above=quoted passages says:

"Specific medical information and advice (rather than descriptions of life experiences) should come from doctors or other health professionals."

Which YMYL Queries Require Different Expertise?

In the medical niche, for example, certain health-related search queries do not need a health professional to provide an answer. This is true with queries that do not require medicine, medical treatment, or a medical diagnosis.

These kinds of search queries make themselves known when you see non-traditional YMYL sites ranked in the search results.

It is useful to review those pages to see what about them makes them authoritative for Google ranking. This is important because sites ranked in YMYL search results tend to have something in their background online that makes them authoritative.

What Makes a Site Authoritative?

Below is a partial list of the kinds of signals that indicate Google rank authority:

• Quality of links
• Quantity of links
• Quoted, interviewed and/or cited from news publications
• Quoted and linked in articles outside of the context of a guest post

Here is a list of activities that Google might not use as authority signals for Google rank but nonetheless are the kinds of activities that build authority. What's notable about these activities is that most don't require credentials or degrees.

Kinds of Activities that Build Google Rank Authority

• Does the site provide an app?
• Is the site publisher active on podcasts?
• Has the publisher of the site published a book?
• Is the site publisher active on YouTube?
• Does the site publisher have an active Twitter account with a respectable amount of followers?
• Is the site/page cited and discussed on Facebook?
• Has the site won awards?
• Is the site publisher a member of industry trade groups?
• Has the site publisher spoken at industry groups?

How Do You Write for Topic Expertise?

The topics covered in your web page must closely align with the topics covered on sites already shown in Google rankings. Being more comprehensive helps, but keeping your content tightly focused on the topic tends to win in the search results.

Publishers tend to think in terms of keywords and then write content related to those keywords to increase Google ranking opportunities.

Topic expertise is about focusing on answering a question, not writing about keywords. Topic expertise meets the need. Meeting that need includes answering the follow-on questions.

When someone asks A, they also tend to discuss B, C, D, and E.

Here is an example:

Question A: "How do I _______?" That can be considered an aspirational question. The searcher aspires to achieve a goal.

FOLLOW-ON QUESTIONS:

B. What are the symptoms of X?

C. What causes X?

D. What can I do to fix X?

Topic expertise is rarely about answering just question A.  Judging by what Google ranks, topic expertise tends to involve answering the follow-on questions.

Achieving that topic expertise may involve several steps in a process. If so, then a section of your page should be dedicated to supplying a short step-by-step explanation.

Two Factors for Topic Expertise

There are many important factors, but two relate directly to topic expertise.

1. Expert author
2. Content addresses meeting the need that underlies the search query.

Google's Search Quality Raters Guidelines goes into granular detail on different kinds of expertise. But there are two general factors that can apply to topic expertise.

1. Expert Author
It helps Google rank if the content reflects the author's personal experience, knowledge or skill. There is a reason that on some level makes the author an expert and it should show in the content.

It pays to revisit what was quoted earlier from the Search Quality Raters Guidelines:

“If it seems as if the person creating the content has the type and amount of life experience to make him or her an “expert” on the topic, we will value this “everyday expertise...” "

2. Address the Need
Content should addresses the need, not the keyword, for Google ranking.

Topic expertise is about turning keywords into aspirations by asking, 'What is the searcher trying to achieve, what are they trying to accomplish?' Once those questions are formulated you can then proceed to writing content that helps site visitors achieve their goals and better your Google rank.

That doesn't mean being wordy. In a mobile first world, it's more important now than ever to be direct in answering the questions.

From the Search Quality Raters Guidelines:

"What makes a high-quality page? A high-quality page should have a beneficial purpose and achieve that purpose well."

Expertise-Authority-Trustworthiness (E-A-T)

Content that displays topic expertise is more important for Google rank today than ever before. Truth, accuracy, and trustworthiness are all important. But the most important Google ranking factor resides in the content itself and that's where top Google ranks begin and end.

The customer journey today has become an increasingly personal path. Consumers have the power to research their own pain points and potential solutions themselves. Brands who want to understand how customers progress need to have a guide, and that is the role of the content journey maps.

The importance of consumer journey maps has risen in response. Here is what our community should understand how this strategy and the process of designing one for your organization.

Understanding the importance of customer journey mapping

The value of customer journey maps lie in their ability to help everyone throughout the organization understand how prospective customers go from leads to customers. Journey maps force organizations to dive in depth into this path, giving them greater insight and a better idea of what prospective customers want to see at each journey maps stage as they get closer to making a purchase.

Customer journey maps explore questions related to what customers want to know at each stage. It allows the marketing and sales team to know the types of inquiries they will receive and the types of content they should produce. Journey maps also help the brand understand how customers feel, which offers greater insight into the type of interaction they want to have. Brands will find it significantly easier to create customer-first experiences armed with this information.

Perhaps even more importantly, these customer journey maps can be used across departments and throughout the organization. Everyone at the business will find it easier to remain on the same page regarding customer expectations and wants. When a new lead lands on the sales team’s desk, for example, they will have a far greater understanding of the process and emotions this individual went through during the early journey maps stage of their purchase process, helping them to create a more tailored experience for the prospect now.

The journey maps improvement in the customer experience will also help the business better identify potential holes in the customer experience. They will find it easier to identify gaps that might hurt their ability to coax new leads through the journey towards conversion.

Similarly, all of the departments can work together to ensure that a person going through this journey encounters the right user experience at each journey maps stage. People will provide better service. For example, those who work in UX will better understand what brings new visitors to the site, what they feel, and what they want to see. This will improve their ability to create a highly-effective website.

Getting started with customer journey mapping

Now that the importance of customer journey maps have become clear, let’s explore how to create an effective map that will improve your ability to engage with your customers.

Review your customer personas

You likely have already built customer personas for the rest of your marketing efforts. If you have not, this should be your first priority of starting your journey maps. Explore the core questions about your customers that let you see why they choose your brand and what pain points they want to solve. Ask questions such as:

• What brought you to our site?
• What problem did you want to solve?
• What motivated you to buy with us over our competitors?
• How helpful were our sales representatives? How could they have been more helpful?

These personas will give you ideas about the people you want to bring into your buyer’s journey and thus help you understand what they need and want to see from your organization.

Research how customers move through your journey maps

Now you want to analyze how your existing customers have gone through your buyer’s journey. You want to gain a better handle on the path they took, including the touch points they engaged with, how quickly or slowly they went from their first interaction towards a purchase, and what motivated them along the way.

Begin by looking at your website data. You should be able to gain a good idea of where your customers originated, such as whether they came from the SERP, a paid ad, social media, or a direct visit. You may use the StoryBuilder feature in BrightEdge to help you easily visualize this important information.

At this stage of your journey maps, you also want to see how customers behave on the site. Look at the rate of new and return visitors as well as how long customers spend on the page and the bounce rate.

In addition to your internal site data, take your inquiry outside your site to sources such as social media. Look at customer engagement rates on these channels and what they most likely want to see as they engage with your brand. At this journey maps stage, consider the questions they ask and the information they seem the most interested in obtaining.

The information you gather from this journey maps data should then be combined with interviews and anecdotes from customers to ensure you have a firm picture of customer behavior. For example, make sure that your bounce rate is not low because customers have trouble navigating your site and they have to jump around to multiple pages to find important information.

Ask your customers questions such as:

• Did you have trouble finding important information on our website?
• Did you need to speak with our customer support teams at all? Were they able to help?
• What objections did you need to overcome to purchase from us? Can we do anything to help more with this process?
• What were the most useful types of content and engagement you received from us during your buying process?
• How did you feel at each stage of the buyer’s journey? How did we help? How could we help more?

List your important touch points

List out all of the different important touch points you have with customers throughout the buying process. Do not neglect any of the channels where customers might engage with you. In this stage of your journey maps, think about website, email marketing, social media, and conversational touch points that your customers progress through as they get closer to making a purchase.

You want to map out when customers will likely reach these touch points, so you know what stages of the buyer’s journey they will likely embody. When mapping out the touch points, consider both your interviews and conversations with your customers as well as research into consumer behavior to make the best projections for when touch points will be reached.

As you map out the touch points, also include how customers felt during the different stages of your journey maps. Record their likely questions and emotions that you want to address as they progress. Align their questions and feelings to the content you expect them to consume.

Watch customers move through your journey maps

Now that you have built your customer journey map, you need to test your ideas to see how well it aligns with the actual experience of your customers. 

When a new lead lands on your site, use journey maps to note their persona and the path they take. Compare their engagement with touch points and how they interact with your brand to your expectations. 

Watch for evidence of the lead stalling throughout the process. See how well your organization meets the needs of the customer as they progress through the journey. Once this customer converts, speak with them about their experience during the buyer’s journey and ask about any unexpected events-- such as delays in progression-- and see if you can make adjustments to better assist the buyer.

Analyze and adjust your journey maps

Now that you have your customer journey maps, along with evidence as to your maps’ accuracy, see if any adjustments need to be made. If customers do not follow the path you outlined, adjust your path or your strategy to better align them. Take into account what customers quoted as presenting problems for them and make changes to your marketing and sales process to better accommodate these needs.

Your customer journey maps will guide your organization as you work to improve your customer engagement. As you better understand how customers move through their journey as well as the questions, emotions, and obstacles they encounter along the way, your business will find it easier to nurture leads and produce the sales and marketing engagement they want to see using journey maps.

Discover how to rank well in Google's SERPs after you've mastered your customer experience and journey mapping.

Today’s digital world offers a number of different platforms for engaging with customers. Each one has a particular audience it reaches most effectively, targeting different populations and people at different stages of the buyer’s journey. Marketers must understand how the different platforms interact, how they line up with different touch-points, and where they can find their target audience at different stages of their journey towards conversion. 

An estimated 71 percent of customers say that they want a consistent experience across all channels where they interact with brands, but less than a quarter report actually receiving it during their buyer's journey. Brands that understand how to use cross-channel marketing will have the chance to capture the attention of these potential customers and demonstrate their commitment to the customer experience. Organizations must understand how to optimize their use of the different marketing channels during the buyer's journey so that these customers receive a consistent user experience.

As marketers begin to develop their buyer's journey digital marketing strategy, it is important for them to have an omni-channel approach. It is not enough to simply market to customers on different platforms. You do not want to run simultaneous campaigns through different channels. Instead, organizations should focus on having a consistent experience for customers regardless of where they interact with the brand. All the channels should work together to bring customers through the buyer’s journey across different touch-points on different platforms.

Here is what we wanted to share with our community about running integrated campaigns to enhance the buyer's journey sales funnel.

Understand the different types of digital marketing

Before we dive into building a firm understanding of running these omni-channel campaigns, let’s first explore the role that these different channels play in multi-channel marketing.

What is SEO and content marketing?

SEO and content marketing describe the material you use to attract people through the SERPs. You optimize this material with keywords, topics, and promotion to help Google find the material and then to encourage the search engines to rank it highly on the SERP. You can utilize the BrightEdge Data Cube to drive your keyword research efforts. Using Data Cube before or during your SEO strategy will help you to create the content your audience wants to read. Decide which keywords to use before you spend time writing content or after you write it to revise and optimize existing content for new keywords. Your SEO strategy using Data Cube can increase organic traffic, results, leads, etc. Check out how Graco Inc. did it!

With content marketing and SEO, you need to have a firm understanding of keyword research to identify topics of interest for your target audience throughout the buyer's journey. You also must produce quality writing, video, and images to attract users and search engines. Website metrics will help you monitor your success with this material.

Social media marketing involves engaging with prospective customers through the various social media platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. When running campaigns on these platforms throughout the buyer's journey, you might run promotions, promote content you think followers will appreciate, and inspire conversations to keep people engaged with your brand. The goal here lies in regularly producing high-value content. Discover how SEO and social media power together to create a strong bond with this BrightEdge POV.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing uses registration pages to capture the contact information for site visitors. This contact information can then be used to create segmented email lists. Brands that maximize their potential here during the buyer's journey understand how to send material that will interest their site visitors, encouraging them to engage more with the brand and continue to move through the sales funnel.

What is mobile marketing?

Mobile marketing involves understanding how to use these different channels throughout the buyer's journey and maximize your ability to engage with users accessing them through mobile devices. According to BrightEdge Research, nearly 2/3 of Americans are smartphone owners and 57 percent of searches are performed on mobile devices.

BrightEdge offers a mobile option for discovery. While you add and track keywords in BrightEdge Keyword Reporting, you can easily navigate through different device types including desktop, tablet, and smartphone in order to collect data on how your keywords and pages are doing by device. Knowing how to appeal to people on-the-go will enhance a brands’ ability to remain relevant.

What is paid marketing?

Paid marketing, also known as PPC, includes the ads you can post on several different platforms, including the Google SERPs themselves, social media platforms, and even on other, ad-friendly, websites. Success at this point in the buyer's journey involves knowing the keywords that correspond with the visitors who are most likely to find your content calendar helpful or finding contextually or behaviorally aligned sites on which to place your ads.

Before you decide to spend your budget on paid advertising, it is a good idea to do plenty of research to make sure you're getting the most for your money. By using BrightEdge Instant, you can see real-time results with real-time research to determine whether or not a keyword is worth paying to promote. 

What other channels should brands consider?

In addition to these central digital channels, many organizations also find it helpful to remember other traditional advertising areas, including radio and TV ads and in-store promotions. Although these channels function quite differently from digital options, ensuring that they remain consistent with digital marketing efforts will engage and advance customers at a better rate.

Understand the common platforms that influence customers throughout the funnel

To build effective omni-channel campaigns, you need to now take these different channels and bring them together. Understand the channels and touchpoints potential customers will most likely encounter as they move through your buyer’s journey. Some of this information will be customized to your precise customers, but here is a good starting point based on where most brands find their customers at various phases in the buyer’s journey.

Channels for the Awareness Stage

During the awareness stage of the buyer's journey, customers are looking for information about their pain points and potential solutions. Thus, they perform a lot of searches, building the importance of SEO and content marketing. Content production should also include videos and webinars as alternative ways to engage potential customers and interest them in the brand.

Complementing your SEO and content production efforts should be PPC campaigns, which will run for similar core topics as the content marketing and SEO efforts. Use PPC throughout the buyer's journey to attract attention to important keywords that your material does not yet rank for.

Similarly, during the buyer's journey, email can keep customers engaged and learning about your potential solution for their pain point.

Channels for the Evaluation Stage

During the evaluation stage of the buyer's journey, customers have narrowed down their options and seriously consider your brand as a potential solution to their pain point. Continue to demonstrate your expertise and ability to help with content on your website, webinars, and ebooks. This material will help them dive deeply into the solutions you offer during this step of the buyer's journey. Before launching a webinar, get your basic approach to creating a successful one with this BrightEdge checklist.

Social media will also play an increasing role here, as prospects turn to the platforms to engage directly with your brand and gauge your ability to help them.

Customers may also reach a stage of the buyer's journey where they want to see quality demos that allow them to see first-hand how you will help them. 

Channels for the Purchase Stage

During the purchase stage, customers continue to engage with the content you produce and use the search engines to learn more about the product or service they have purchased. They want to make sure they get the best value possible. 

Events you host and meetings you can offer your customers during this period can also help keep them engaged with the company and be happy with their purchase. This sets the stage for repeat customers. 

Channels for the Usage Stage

While customers use your product or service, you want to make sure that what they have purchased solves their pain points and continues to benefit them. Your email list will provide value here as you can regularly send customers articles to help them maximize their usage of your product.

You can also continue to produce content that customers at this stage of the buyer's journey find helpful, such as FAQ pages and case studies, helping them to see how others have seen great results with your brand.

Channels for the Repurchase Stage

During the repurchase phase of the buyer's journey, you need to convince people who have purchased from you before that they want to purchase from you again. Creating content that once again demonstrates your superiority over the competition can help. Email messages that help customers learn more about getting the most out of their purchase and also remind them of the successes they have already seen will help at this stage of the buyer's journey. 

Channels for the Advocacy Stage

Once you have already convinced a customer to buy from you again, now you want to turn them into an advocate. Customers willing to speak highly of you to other prospects can be a powerful source of persuasion. Encouraging them to help you produce content, such as case studies or even writing reviews can benefit your organization. Use email, social media, and events to remain closely connected to these repeat customers. 

Bringing your different channels together

Now that you understand how these different channels typically interact throughout the buyer’s journey, let’s review how to bring the platforms together to create an omni-channel approach that nurtures customers through each stage of the funnel.

Understand buyer personas

To create a successful campaign across these channels, you must understand your buyer personas. Know what these customers want to see and the pain point they want to solve. The better you understand where the prospect is coming from, the easier it will be to produce content tailored to their unique needs. 

You will also be better equipped to coax them through the sales funnel. You will find it easier to find the customers across the different channels, and you will know what they want to see as they get closer to conversion.

Create a common campaign

With your understanding of your customer personas and your use of different platforms, work with specialists across the different platforms within your company to create common campaigns. Your campaigns should follow the customers' buyer’s journey and work to coax them from one touchpoint to the next. The campaign should create a consistent user experience and operate with well-aligned goals.

Know how your different platforms and channels work together throughout the buyer's journey. For example, your PPC strategy will drive traffic, while your site content should then take that traffic and build engagement and the number of people who register for email lists. 

Measure progress

As you create your integrated campaigns, carefully measure your progress for each step of the buyer's journey. Your selected KPIs should explore how well your campaign brings people from one stage of the buyer's journey to the next. For example, measure top-of-the-funnel channels by looking at new visitors and engagement. As you move into the mid-funnel, gauge your return visitors, their engagement, and their rate of mid-funnel conversions.

Looking at all your channels and platforms together as a part of a single customer engagement picture will give you a better understanding of how your different strategies can work together to bring in new customers.

Building omni-channel campaigns throughout the buyer's journey will allow you to take your marketing strategy to the next level. You will improve your ability to engage with customers as they move throughout the digital atmosphere. Bring your channels together and help them function together as one and see how you can improve your own customer engagement ability for a repeated buyer's journey.

If your site sees a sudden drop in SEO results after an algorithm change, it's worthwhile to wait before panicking and making changes. Google updates have a history of dialing back changes and restoring some of the traffic to legitimate sites that produce quality content and use white hat techniques. In some cases your site can regain rankings on the next Google updates or even sooner. So there is reason to hold out hope at least initially when impacted by Google also updates.

A few months ago I published a blog on the March 19 algo update and how to react and respond.

Google Algorithm Has Historically Softened

Google has a history of updating their algorithm in order to soften some of the unintended impacts on quality sites. I can remember many Google updates where some high quality sites were negatively affected with algorithm changes and then recovered on the next update or sooner.

In the search industry this is known as "dialing back" the algorithm. This phrase has its origins from various statements from Google about how they were softening the impact.

There are many examples of statements from Google affirming that they are softening the Google updates impact (dialing it back). Here's an example from back in 2013 where Google's Matt Cutts states in a YouTube Video that they will be releasing a new version of their Panda algorithm that will soften the impact for high authority websites.

"We've also been looking at Panda and seeing if we can find some additional signals, and we think we got some, to help refine things for the sites that are kind of in the border zone, in the gray area a little bit.

And so if we can soften the effect a little bit for those sites that we believe have got some additional signals of quality, then that will help sites that might have previously been affected to some degree by Panda."

As you can see from the above quote, subsequent Google updates softened the impact of the Panda algorithm by adding some quality signals that helped Google understand that a site is high quality and should not be affected by the Panda algorithm.

What Are False Positives - Quality Sites Hit by Google Updates?

In the above example discussed by Matt Cutts, Google updates are adding signals of quality. Externally, it is seen as "dialing back" on the algorithm, which describes the effect of how Google updates revise an algorithm so that there are fewer false positives.

A false positive is the term for when high-quality site content is hit with an algorithm update. There are false positives in every algorithm update.

Google used to recalculate the ranking signals on a monthly basis to account for new web pages and pages that had changed.

The Google Dance in Google's Broad Core Update

The process of "updating" the data center algorithm changes took days. This resulted in a nail-biting period of time where search results fluctuate wildly. This instability was generally the process of rolling out the new search index to Google's worldwide data centers.

This is the origin of the phrase, Google Dance, a period during which search results are in a state of change, something that still happens today.

Wait. Your Site May Recover From Google Updates Soon

The advice for Google updates, both then and now, is to wait and not take action until they have settled.

If your site has been affected by Google updates, it's possible your site may recover within the first five days of an announced algorithm update.

Google Dance Ranking Flux

If your site recovers from Google updates within the first few days, the reason could be the Google Dance. That's why it's recommended to wait and not panic over Google updates. Fixing things can sometimes make algorithm changes worse. If your site is high quality then it may recover during the Google Dance.

Ranking Factors Dial-back

For some sites, it can take 10-15 days to recover rankings from Google updates because the updates dial back some of the weighting factors. 

So if your site doesn't recover within the first few days, then there is still a window of ten to fifteen days where the Google updates might spot false positives and take action to soften the algorithm.

Why Do Some Sites Recover on the Next Update?

Google updates are tested internally before releasing them. That's what Google's external Quality Raters do. They are part of the testing process to check if new algorithms are working as intended.

Yet, no matter how much testing is done, some high quality sites lose rankings because of an algorithm change. Google will try to figure why the good pages lost rankings and in a broad core update, those false positives will regain their rankings. 

Google updates do not fix the rankings of sites individually. When a quality site loses rankings, it's because of an unintended algorithm factor that is affecting many sites, not just the one site.

The solution to this Google updates issue, as Matt Cutts described in the video above, is created to scale in order to positively affect all the high quality sites that deserve to recover rank.

How to Know if Your Site is a False Positive During Google Update

There is no way to know for certain whether your site has suffered a ranking loss as a false positive. That's Google's information and only someone at Google can know.

However, in my experience with Google updates, there are clues that can help you understand if your site has suffered from the algorithm for a reason or is possibly a false positive.

Why a Site Loses Rankings: Percentage of Traffic is Lost

Sometimes a site may lose a percentage of traffic after Google updates. In my opinion there are two reasons to explain this. The first reason is that a site is suffering a ranking loss due to relevance issues. The site is still ranking, but not as well as it used to.

The second reason for a percentage loss after Google updates could be associated with a technical issue related to links or quality. But those kinds of technical issues are likely to affect rankings on a daily basis.

A broad core algorithm update is generally focused on relevance factors.

In general, the reason is because the new algorithm determines that another site is more original or relevant for the search query.

How to Tell if a Site Will Not Recover on Next Update?

Sites that suffer a collapse of rankings higher than 70% of traffic more from Google updates are likely suffering from a profound issue. While it's possible these sites could be suffering as a false positive to the algorithm, it is likelier that there are important quality issues to look at it.

Know When to Fix Your Site

If your site does not recover within the first fifteen days after a broad core algorithm update, you should look into diagnosing site problems. 

Alternatively you can wait until the next core algorithm update to see if your rankings return. But that’s not an ideal scenario as that does not happen to the majority of sites.

False Positives and Algorithm Dial-backs are Real

If you have lost a percentage of rankings because of Google updates, it is possible that your site is suffering from a false positive and that rankings may return. But don't wait too long before taking action in the hopes that your site will recover on its own as that is not generally the norm.

So if your traffic drop was due to an algorithm change and does not revert, what can you do?

Google’s guidance and BrightEdge best practices are consistent:

1. Increase your content production cadence of blogs, pages, FAQs, glossary, and videos to try to offset the lost traffic
2. Continue to focus on high-quality content
3. Be authoritative, deep, and relevant, target over 1000 words per piece and preferably over 2000 words
4. Be original, fresh, accurate, and current
5. Build multiple pieces in a content silo and internally link them together
6. Be well liked and linked to internally, externally, and socially
7. Work on page load speed until you get to 95 score
8. Reduce the bounce rate of people landing on your site
9. Provide an excellent customer experience and site performance
10. Consider using schema markup, which Google has been promoting since 2011 and people are starting to report positive rank and traffic impact from schema