Conversational Search, Real Meaning, and the Importance of Backlinks

enewton@brightedge.com
enewton@brightedge.com
M Posted 10 years 9 months ago
t 9 min read

How to design a site that get backlinks and, more importantly, traffic

Content Performance Marketing requires you to develop content that can target organic demand, that your audience readily consumes, has on-page optimization, and get backlinks.

There are two main reasons you want to get backlinks to your site: page rank and traffic. In the SEO industry we have been more concerned with the former, but now is a good time to recalibrate how we orient our efforts to page-building efforts and performance. On May 5, 2014 Matt Cutts released a video that described that backlinks will become “a little” less important over time because they have determined that “people care about the quality of the content on that particular page” and “Google is getting better and better at understanding actual language.” We can also surmise that it is harder to game quality content than it is to get backlinks and therefore will become a better measure of worthiness as a destination to send traffic to.

When people link to your website they provide you with a lift in SEO. Google looks closely at how many people link to content as a way to gauge how helpful the site is and whether it answers people’s questions and provides them with value. The search engine operates on the premise that when quality sites link to another site that website can also be trusted, but as its ability to understand language, meaning and intent evolve, it will shift weight away from backlinks.

Reputable websites that produce the quality backlinks you want for your site are most interested in keeping their readers engaged and providing them with value. Linking to a website can be likened to giving the site a nod of approval. The link says that this information can be trusted, so people generally are careful about where they link. Professionals want to link to other quality websites that they know will treat their readers to the same level of value that they receive on the initial site.

If you want to get backlinks to your website, you need to understand these needs and make sure that your website is equipped to be that professional page that has the answers for readers. When others see that your site is worth visiting, you will have a link-friendly site that can improve your SEO and reputation. Check out this post to get some backlink building ideas you could do in a day.

The Importance of Design to Get Backlinks

For people who arrive on your website, the first thing they are going to notice is the page load speed and the second is the design and UI. People will form an opinion about websites in two tenths of a second, and the simpler and more logical the design, the better impression the site will have on visitors. Google co-published a study demonstrating that sites with the least complexity and designs that mirror what customers expect rank the highest for likability. Make sure that the design is visually appealing and it is easy for people to navigate your pages and find information about your brand.

design your website to get backlinks - brightedge

Flashy advertisements can be particularly detrimental for the beauty of the site. Readers will struggle to remain focused on the content on your page when they are continually distracted by blaring advertisements on the side.

Similarly, if there are any graphics on the websites, they should fit well with the information on the page and not disrupt the flow of the content. High-quality images and graphics can be enormous assets to written content, articles with images receive 94 percent more views, but if the images draw attention away from the written content, they may reduce your chance to get backlinks.

The layout of the page also addresses the ease of navigation. People do not like to click or scroll excessively. You want to avoid forcing your visitors to click from page to page unnecessarily whenever possible. This means that you do not design articles that require people to click to see pages 2/3/4 of the article.

The Value of the Content Itself to Get Backlinks

Quality content will be what brings people to your site and first entices them to link back to you. People do not want to link back to posts that are weak and lack substance or direction. Writing the type of content that people will link to requires three criteria:

  • understanding your buyer personas
  • educating your personas on topics that interest them
  • writing regularly

When trying to develop content that your buyer personas will be interested in, begin by looking at your own FAQs. Consider the questions that people ask you when they first enter your office. Think about news related to your industry and your opinion on the stories. Use information that can help your personas educate themselves.

The articles should not be thin and only retell information that can be found on thousands of other pages on the internet. You should work to include your own expertise and experience through the tone, depth of the content, and the information you provide. When you get backlinks to content, it's because the person found the content helpful and believe that others will as well, so write with this intent in mind. Keep the writing clear, concise, and informative.

Some keys to organically popular and linkable content include:

  1. Useful information
  2. Entertaining content
  3. Fresh, current, timely
  4. Original information based on unique findings or research

Good content also incorporates appropriate on-page SEO:

  1. Naturally incorporate keywords in the prose and anchor text
  2. Scannable writing with headlines, subheadlines, bullets, and lists that use the H1 and the H2 tags
  3. Promoting articles on social media to boost traffic and reach and recorded social signals to indicate topical trending

This will make it easier for people to discover your content and the value you offer.

Monitor success

As you work to get backlinks and traffic to your page, use a technology like the BrightEdge StoryBuilder to build a Backlinks Report to track your overall progress. The powerful technology will enable you visualize the backlink data from every perspective. The image below breaks out links by product line. It will be helpful for you to see how your site is ranking and if your efforts to get backlinks are having the desired impact. You can use this information to enhance your future efforts and build a well-connected site that serves your business well.

Get Backlinks by Product Line - brightedge

Encouraging people to link to a website, however, requires making sure that the site is valuable, professional, and inviting from the content on the page to the design and appearance. By optimizing the quality of content on the site, however, you can help to create a page that is link- friendly and can help build your traffic and brand’s impact.

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Post-Mobile Algorithm Change White Paper

A 3-step approach to weathering Google’s next big algorithm change

Google is moving faster than ever with algorithm updates, small and large, rolling out on a seemingly monthly basis. Of which, some are announced publicly, like Google’s recent mobile algorithm update that rolled out on April 21st 2015, and some are not, like the February 4th Mystery Update which registered as one the highest search result fluctuations of the first half of 2015.

This white paper will focus on what we can control and give you the processes and know-how to make sure your site will not be severely impacted by Google’s next announced algorithm update.

Notice minimal changes to your rankings with the next Google algo change with the tips in this full whitepaper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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BrightEdge Introduces The Data Quant and a New Era in Content Performance Marketing

Data Quant & New Era in Content Performance Marketing with BrightEdge

Supports Brands With Data Insights and Unveils Anomaly Detection Technology to Drive Content Performance

SAN MATEO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/30/15 -- BrightEdge, the essential content performance marketing platform, today unveiled the BrightEdge Data Quant alongside Anomaly Detection technology. The Data Quant, a virtual team of data scientists built into the BrightEdge platform, combines massive volumes of data from the Data Cube with immediate, actionable insights to inform marketing decisions. This intelligence layer amplifies and enhances every BrightEdge product -- including newly launched Anomaly Detection -- by actively thinking and working on behalf of marketers.

"Today, marketers are caught in a paradox; they know data is a strategic necessity, but lack the resources to analyze and make actionable the volumes of first-and-third party data available," said BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu. "In an increasingly competitive content battleground, the stakes are high and marketers need technology that not only improves efficiency, but allows them to focus on what matters. Our Data Quant does the heavy lifting for marketers, so they can spend less time digging for answers and more time focusing on the work that's most impactful for their business."

Enhancing Content Performance with the Power of Data Scientists

Brands, people and machines create more than five exabytes of data every two days. This disparate data is now scattered and largely unstructured with no means for gleaning actionable insight in its current form by hand. BrightEdge combines the breadth and depth of the Data Cube with the brainpower of the Data Quant to inject a layer of intelligent, automated decision making into every content effort in order to close that gap and deliver results.

Today, marketers are strapped for resources and overloaded with the demands of modern business. The explosion of data has created an overwhelming demand for data scientists to unravel and unlock valuable insights. The Data Quant essentially functions as an unlimited team of data scientists baked into the BrightEdge platform that thinks and grows with marketers as their programs evolve. This new technology layer completes the BrightEdge platform and alleviates marketers' pain points, by supporting them with technology that can identify trends and surface issues, showcase high performance and immediately take action to improve or enhance content.

"We produce and manage nearly 15,000 pieces of content each month," said Michael Kirchhoff, Director SEO / Product Support at PenWell Media. "It's virtually impossible for our small team of three people to conquer this extraordinary amount of content on our own. BrightEdge is more than a technology partner; it's a fourth (perhaps fifth and sixth) team member that enables us to do so much more than we'd be capable of otherwise."

A New Way to Uncover the Unknown

Coinciding with the debut of the Data Quant, BrightEdge also introduces Anomaly Detection, the newest product designed to uncover the good, the bad and, in some cases, the ugly factors that impact content marketing efforts. Anomaly Detection offers access to both the Data Quant and Data Cube to identify significant shifts in the performance of brands' content. With the help of the Data Quant, not only are performance shifts detected automatically, but recommendation notifications are served to marketers immediately. This reduces the time and resources previously spent in spreadsheets hunting for performance and market trends, in turn, freeing marketers to be more effective and timely in responding to those occurrences.

"BrightEdge's new Anomaly Detection feature is highly customizable and surfaces the important data right in front of you as it happens," said Ryan Watson, SEO Manager at Aetna. "No longer do you have to dig and search through the data to see important changes in the search landscape."

Key Anomaly Detection features include:

  • Manage Business Performance: Oversees all of a company's critical performance metrics across a myriad of data sets to identify trends and anomalies. This transforms the role of the marketer from dashboard viewer to outcome driver, so they can focus on the work that matters most. Business metrics include:
    • Performance metrics: the rise or fall of revenue and / or conversions from an entire domain or a particular section of content.
    • Traffic: where traffic is coming from and if that traffic is rising or falling on a page or channel level.
    • Engagement: the increase or decrease in bounce rate and / or average time spent on a site or page.
    • Competitors: the changes in the performance of competitors' content or your content's' performance relative to the competitive landscape.
    • Search rank and volume: understand the potential for traffic based on search rankings and demand for specific topics.
  • Actionable Recommendations: Recommendations for how to respond to anomalies in performance are provided in line so the proper actions can be taken in a timely and effective manner. This increases the impact of the marketer as the technology prioritizes and guides efforts.
  • Criteria Customization: Anomaly Detection allows marketers to set their own unique criteria for uncovering business insights. Once configured, Anomaly Detection oversees critical performance metrics to identify trends and anomalies.

About BrightEdge

BrightEdge is the essential content marketing platform that transforms online content into tangible business results such as traffic, revenue and engagement. BrightEdge's S3 platform is powered by a sophisticated big data analysis engine and is the only company capable of web-wide, real-time measurement of content engagement across all digital channels, including search, social and mobile. BrightEdge's 1,200+ customers include global brands such as 3M, Microsoft, Netflix and Nike, as well as 41 of the Fortune 100. The company is based in San Mateo, CA with offices in Chicago, Seattle, New York City and London.

Visit our website: www.brightedge.com
Read our blog: www.brightedge.com/blog
Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/seoplatform
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/brightedge

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Marketing Demand Generation and CPM: Why it Continues to Soar

enewton@brightedge.com
enewton@brightedge.com
M Posted 10 years 9 months ago
t 9 min read

In 2014 Econsultancy reported that 79 percent of UK companies had implemented marketing demand generation strategies that year. That represents a year-over-year growth of 25 percent. In the United States, the numbers were even slightly higher with an estimated 85 percent adoption rate.

This new form of marketing has changed the way companies approach advertising in the digital era. It has taken marketing from an outbound, interruptive process to an interactive engagement process. Customers can access the information they seek when they want it without having it displayed when they have no interest.

Marketing demand generation continues to grow because marketers have found it incredibly effective. The UK marketers surveyed by Econsultancy reported that 43 percent had already experienced a positive ROI from marketing demand generation. Social media, which is integral to the marketing process, was also reported as the top lead source for these companies.

Companies today that take the initiative to move into the world of marketing demand generation find it to be productive and a worthwhile investment. Understanding what makes marketing so valuable is key to leveraging these strategies effectively and efficiently.

Why is marketing demand generation so effective?

It is not traditional advertising

Customers now ignore traditional outbound marketing at increasing rates. According to a survey quoted by Marketing Charts:

  • 82 percent of people ignore advertisements they see online
  • 37 percent of people ignore advertisements they see on television
  • 36 percent of people ignore advertisements they hear on the radio.

In general, customers have grown tired of being interrupted with advertisements as they attempt to go about their lives, whether it is surfing the internet, watching TV, or listening to music. For companies to be successful despite a significant portion of their audience tuning them out completely, they must be able to understand their customers’ needs and produce effective marketing that addresses this need. This is the value of marketing demand generation.

Customers control of marketing experience

The advent of the internet and its ability to put information at people’s fingertips means that the customer has gained more control of the buying experience. They are no longer dependent upon companies and brands to contact them and provide them with information about new potential products. Instead, they are the ones to initiate the search for information.

In 2012, an estimated 61 percent of people looked up information online about major purchases before heading to the store. By 2013 that number had reached 81 percent.

Marketing gives brands the positioning they need to take advantage of these statistics. With marketing demand generation, brands seek to anticipate the needs of consumers and produce content that will answer their inquiries and draw them towards the brands. The companies that can accurately predict what their potential customers will be looking for and produce high quality content that is search engine friendly are the ones that will benefit the most from inbound marketing.

Technology such as the BrightEdge Data Cube can help companies focus on content that speaks particularly well to their customers. They can analyze the keywords, topic, rich media and types of content that are attracting the most attention on their own site and on competitors’ sites, helping them improve their marketing strategy.

BrightEdge Data Cube Score for marketing demand generation

Positions brands to build relationships

Customers today have demonstrated their genuine interest in building a relationship with the companies with which they do business. This relationship and the customer experience are crucial for building brand loyalty and creating a positive reputation. It costs 6-7 time more to find a new customer than to retain an existing one. Seventy percent of buying experiences are also directly impacted by how the customer feels they are being treated.

Inbound marketing offers a perfect platform for building this type of productive relationship. With high quality content and answering questions and concerns, companies can demonstrate their commitment to their customers. To better understand the marketing demand generation roles, see this quick overview.

Content can be used to guide customers through the buyer’s journey. When one company consistently answers the queries put forth by page visitors, those visitors come to inherently trust the brand. As they prepare to make a purchase, they will automatically turn to the brands upon which they have come to depend.

Marketing demand generation encourages brands to produce content and marketing strategies to guide customers towards a decision. Going from blog posts answering questions to white papers that detail the advantages of one brand over another can help cement the relationship between the customer and company, produce a sale, and build loyalty.

Marketing demand generation has produced incredible responses in brands around the world. Ninety three percent of buying cycles start with an online search, which means that marketing demand generation gives companies the tools they need to reach these people. It has helped to drive its growth and is something all marketers should examine and expand as they prepare plans for the upcoming quarter and fiscal year.  

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Adobe Experience Managerを使ったコンテンツ作成と管理

昨今、ウェブサイトは、どんどん複雑になっています。ウェブページには、言葉だけでなく、いろいろなものが期待されています。ページの閲覧者は、画像、ビデオ、凝ったコンテンツやソーシャルメディアとの統合を期待しています。面白いイメージやビデオを含むコンテンツは、そうでないビデオより、 94パーセント多く閲覧されています。 さらに、67%のお客様が鮮明な画像のほうが、製品情報や他のお客様の評価よりも購入を決めるときには重要だと信じています。このようなウェブサイトの追加情報はお客様を引き寄せ、サイトに滞留させ、ブライドに親しませるために、重要です。

今日、各企業はこのようなダイナミックで魅力あるウェブサイトを政策するための様々なツールを持っています。大企業にとって、Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) は、最も人気のある、ウェブコンテンツ管理システムです。このシステムについて、ご存じない方のために、このプラットフォームでできることを簡単にご紹介しましょう。

ウェブサイトの管理

AEM は、ウェブサイトの開発者が高度なウェブサイトを開発、管理するためのすべてのツールを含んでいます。開発は、執筆者環境 (author environment) から始まります。ここで、様々な種類のコンテンツを製作し、公開することが可能です。ここでは、ウェブページ、出版物、その他、様々なコンテンツを含みます。企業のためにウェブサイトを開発している人にとって、タスクを調整したり、ワークフローを組み立てたりして、チームの誰が公開前にレビューをおこなうのか、コントロールすることができます。

サイトの中に新たにページを作成するには、ユーザは、「Create Page」をドロップダウンメニューから選択するだけでできます。

(Images courtesy of Adobe at https://docs.adobe.com/docs/en/aem/6-1/author/page-authoring/qg-page-authoring.html)

AEM - Create Page

ページが作成され、レビューされると、「publish page」を選択します。

AEM - Publish Page

AEMの中から、ユーザは、簡単にページがモバイル環境ではどのような画面に変化するのか、確認することができます。これによって、スマートフォンのユーザ・エクスペリエンスを確認することができます。ページにタグを付けたり、ページタイトルを編集したり、メタ・ディスクリプション、その他の内容を変更することができます。これによって、ページがインデックスされやすくなり、訪問者は簡単にサイト内を見て回ることができるようになります。

AEM - Create Rich Mediaウェブサイトをさらに向上させるために、ユーザは、各種のデジタルメディア、リッチメディアの内容をアップロードしたり、編集したりできます。フォーマットや解像度などの詳細を調整したり、サイズを変えたり、トリミングすることも可能です。360°からの製品を見るように、インタラクティブなリッチメディアを作ることさえ可能です。

Photo from http://www.adobe.com/solutions/web-experience-management/dynamic-media.html

映像 についても、編集、カット、公開をこのプラットフォームから実施することができます。これらの機能により、ユーザは、リッチメディアの制作を、様々な異なる製品やツールを使用することなく、一貫して行うことができます。

Eコマース

AEM は、 eコマースサイトの運営に興味を持つユーザにも有効です。サイトオーナーは、Product Information Management システムを使って、正確な製品情報の投入を行うことができます。このプラットフォームを使用することにより、在庫や価格設定などを管理することができ、お客様がサイトを訪問するときに常に最新の情報が抵抗されます。

サイトオーナーは、いくつかの異なるタイプの検索を行うことができます。これには、eCommece 検索やサード・パーティ検索が含まれます。この機能により、お客様が探している製品に関連した言葉で検索ができるようになっています。

ユーザは、ブランドに合わせたショッピングカートを作ることができ、お客様がオンラインで買い物をしている間中、ブランドに合ったエクスペリエンスを体験することができます。訪問者ごとの個人に合わせたパーソナライズされたエクスペリエンスも可能で、簡単に実現できます。サイトでは、「最近閲覧した商品」のような機能や、その他、お客様を惹きつけ、興味を持たせるオプションが利用可能です。

マーケティング

AEM では、マーケティングキャンペーンを最初から最後まで実施することが可能です。このプラットフォームはカスタマイズが容易で、ブランドのアイデンティティをすべてのページで保ことができます。AEMは、ブライトエッジのテクノロジーと簡単に統合できます。これによって、コンテンツの内容を検索結果のページのために最適化し、 自然検索のために、最適化することができます。

ブライトエッジ・コンテンツ・オプティマイザー(BrightEdge Content Optimizer) は、ブライトエッジの画期的なデータキューブ とAEMを合わせることによって動作します。ブラインドの担当者は、どのような話題をお客様が探しているのか、どのようなタイプの情報を求めているのか、リサーチすることができます。これにより、コンテンツを開発し、最適化することが可能になります。マーケターは、オプティマイザーを使って、最適なコンテンツ構成を調べて、どのようなコンテンツがブランドにとって効果的であるか情報をえることができるのです。

お客様がウェブサイトを使い始めた後でも、AEM を使うことによって、成果の検証やキャンペーンのその他の部分を簡単に実施することができます。訪問者からのデータを使用することによって、企業は、以下のことが実施可能になります。

  • ページへの訪問者について、もっと効果的な購入者ペルソナを作る。
  • 消費者の行動を分析し、パーソナライズされたエクスペリエンスの実現を図る。
  • 購読者から集めた情報を使って、ブランドからの電子メールその他のコミュニケーションを実施。できるだけ、パーソナルで個人向けにされたものを作る。

ソーシャルメディアが高品質なマーケティングキャンペーンを実施するにあたって重要な要素になっています。AEMを利用することで、各種ソーシャルツールをウェブサイトで使用するにあたって、作業を簡単で分かりやすくすることが可能です。これらのソーシャルメディアツールは、お客様が自分が好きなブランドとつながりを深めたり、お客様とのエンゲージメントを強めたり、企業の顧客リーチを広げる効果を持ちます。

モバイル端末からウェブサイトにアクセスするお客様の比率は年々増加しています。モバイル端末からのアクセスを取り込むために、AEMは、 モバイルアプリの開発 を容易にします。このことは、ブランドやマーケティング活動の大きな目的にかなうものです。これらのアプリには、アナリティクスや変更可能なダッシュボードが含まれ、アプリの評価やテストをリリース前に行うというオプションもあります。

その他のマーケティング戦略、たとえば、eコマースサイトにおけるプロモーションの実施なども、AEMの人気のある機能です。

AEM - Create Promotions

Photo from: http://www.adobe.com/ca/solutions/web-experience-management/marketing-campaign-management.html

簡単に使えてビジュアルが優れた、ウェブコンテンツ管理システムを探していらっしゃるお客様には、AEMが業界のリーダーだと申し上げましょう。大規模なサイトを作って、さらに競争相手から際立たせるツールを企業に提供します。

これまでのブログ

Visual Content Marketing: Building Digital Stories That Really Connect

English, British
News Item Title
Visual Content Marketing: Building Digital Stories That Really Connect
News Item Author Name
Jim Yu
News Item Published Date
News Item Summary

Visual content has been dominant in the marketing and personal communication worlds. In recent years, professionals have begun to notice that rich media do much more than look nice — they increase engagement, understanding, and can tell the brand story. When people think about the best ways to communicate with their brand audience, they often assume that written content is the best path. But the human brain actually processes visual content faster than text. That might explain why Forbes found that among senior executives, 59 percent would rather watch a video than read an article when both are provided.

Cabela’s Pitches Its Content At The Top Of The Funnel

English, British
News Item Title
Cabela’s Pitches Its Content At The Top Of The Funnel
News Item Author Name
Allison Schiff
News Item Published Date
News Item Summary

Outdoor gear retailer Cabela’s has a fairly straightforward approach to content marketing: “If it doesn’t add value, then we don’t produce it,” said the brand’s SEO manager, Jesse Farley. But the content landscape itself is anything but simple, and one of the core challenges is figuring out what’s relevant and how it’s resonating before even embarking on content creation. For that, Cabela’s turns to content marketing platform BrightEdge, whose technology continuously crawls the web, indexing existing content cross-referenced with how people are reacting to it.

BrightEdge now automatically flags the out-of-the-ordinary in your website content

English, British
News Item Title
BrightEdge now automatically flags the out-of-the-ordinary in your website content
News Item Author Name
Barry Levine
News Item Published Date
News Item Summary

Content performance marketer BrightEdge scans the Web for content similar to your website’s and then scores yours competitively for search, sales conversions, and other things you might want to know. But it’s a lot of analysis for anyone who’s not a data scientist to digest. So the company has created a new layer of intelligence on its platform, and today it is unveiling that layer’s first application. It’s called Anomaly Detection, and, as the name suggests, it looks for out-of-the-ordinary events, based on triggers you set.

How Retail Content Can Meet Mobile Demand

English, British
News Item Title
How Retail Content Can Meet Mobile Demand
News Item Author Name
Jim Yu
News Item Published Date
News Item Summary

Within the past year, consumers’ mobile interaction with retail companies has grown in a big way. According to KissMetrics, consumers spend more time shopping on mobile devices than desktops and 78% of mobile searches for business information result in a local purchase. A massive opportunity exists for mobile retailers to engage customers and drive revenue with content, but many are still missing the mobile mark.

Untethered Talent Wants Training

English, British
News Item Title
Untethered Talent Wants Training
News Item Author Name
Kate Everson
News Item Published Date
News Item Summary

Chief learning officers could soon be even more instrumental to attracting high-potential talent. Recruiting software company Jobvite’s 2015 Job Seeker Nation Survey found that 35 percent of respondents cited “growth opportunities” as the reason for taking a new job. This was particularly true for respondents in their 30s, of whom 43 percent answered that growth opportunities were the reason for joining a new company.

,