Fuel Efficient Acceleration of Your Content Strategy

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Content is King! Build your Internet Marketing Assets quickly and affordably.

Brought to you by:

Nice to Meet You!

Trevor JonesTwitter: @trevorjones71, @gwimaine

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/trevordjones

• SEO– Content is King– Links are Queen– Likes are the New Links

• Conversions– CTA’s need a UVP– Whitepapers, Presentations,

Newsletters, eBooks, spreadsheet tools.

Cash is the fuel that drives your business; fill your inbound marketing gas tank efficiently.

Content is the Fuel that Drives Inbound Marketing

• Hot sauce – Very infrequent content that lights fires

• Chocolate cake – Fun, includes video, images, cartoons

• Roasts – Substantial, requires research or analysis infrequent

• Spinach – Thought leadership, in-depth, less frequent

• Raisin Bran – 250-400 words, educational, keyword optimized, frequent

The Balanced Blogging Diet:The right mix of fuel

With limited time and limited resources, how do you get them all done?

• Need to ramp up business traffic – especially tied to new products– Lots of raisin bran to expand our

keyword rankings– Current staff lacked time for these

posts & had difficulty writing raisin bran posts

• Need to accelerate conversions– More UVP’s required

• Fuel efficiency is a must!– Limited budget– Limited time

GWI’s Goal: Be #1 or #2 in Google for the geo-targeted long-tail phrases “(Product) in Maine”

GWI’s Content Challenge

• Pull in additional internal resources to generate content

• Outsource the content we had difficulty with internally– Raisin bran (at least two per week)– White papers

• Use cost effective tools– No additional budget allocation

• Focus use of internal resources– Spinach, roasts, chocolate cake (at

least one per week)– Webinars, spreadsheet tools, etc for

conversions– Social media listening and interaction

Thanks to our HubSpot IMC – We found Zerys

Tuning & Augmenting the Team

• HubSpot App of the Year– Available through the community tab in HubSpot

• Marketplace of 7,800 writers– Writers are customer rated on five star basis– “Smart Post” reverse-auction style assignment– Direct assignment to favorite writers

• Web tools to manage content creation– Keyword selection– Title suggestions– Project management– Communications– Plagiarism checking

• Extremely affordable – satisfaction guaranteed– Pay what you want to pay

• 400 word posts for as little as $4.00 from a 4 star writer

– Pay only when you are satisfied with the post

Next: A Tour of the Zerys App

What is Zerys?

• Add funds– Major credit cards, PayPal– Promotional credits (ask your IMC or agency!)

• One-time order– Fast, easy way to try it out– Content type, keyword, headline, instructions– Best for jobs that are unlikely to be repeated– Deadlines modified after the order is placed– Cancellations automatically returned to

• Project management dashboard– Project status– One time order status

• Follow up during project– Monitor status & communications with writer– Review content, request revisions, approve, reject

• Follow up when project completes– Post content (copy-paste or auto export to

HubSpot, WordPress, Word)– May want to take notes on writer, add to favorites,

or block

Getting Started

• Projects are groups of similar assignments– Similar content type, length, tone, target market,

and general instructions– Different keywords, titles, and page specific

instructions– Flexible writer assignment

• Advantages– Reduces duplicated effort– Organizes content grouping and editorial calendar– SEO settings & easier up-front deadline setting– More control over job re-posting after cancellations

• Disadvantages– Takes longer to set up– Must place an order for one title to complete setup

• Process– Project settings and writer Instructions– Keywords and stage titles– SEO Settings– Writer assignment and ordering

Using Projects

• Smart Post– Name the price you want to pay, describe the

project, post on job board• Starts with best writers at lowest price• Works skills down, then price up

– Advantages• Great for trying new writers• Usually lower overall cost• Can target by expertise

– Disadvatages• Cancellations, rewrites, delays • Uncertainty

• Direct Assign– Assign directly to a favorite writer or another in

house writer– Advantages

• Predictable quality• Rates can be negotiated• Build relationship with writers

– Disadvantages• Usually higher overall cost

SmartPost vs. Direct Assign

• Writer management– Favorites– Blocked– Notes

• Communications– General messages– Page specific messages

• Plagiarism– Automatic checking via Copyscape

• Automatic Keyword Density Check• Support

– Library of Video Tutorials– Forums– Chat

• Reports

Useful Zerys Tools

• Think of Smart Post as a way of sampling writers– You do pay less for smart post – but have no

idea what you will get until it’s submitted– Over the long term, it’s inefficient for you and

doesn’t pay a living wage to the writer

• Move quickly to direct assignments with favorite writers– Build relationships = improved results with less

effort– Negotiate rates you can both live with long-

term– Fewer cancellations, less headaches, more

consistent work

• Give good direction– “Ice cream in, ice cream out”– Saves frustration, hurt feelings, and time

• Communicate!– Job specific messages – Direct messages to writers

Tips for effective use of Zerys

Maintaining Engine Efficiency(A few lessons learned)

• Zerys Blog Posts= About 10% of blog content– Average Cost: $8.73– Avg. words: 447– Average time from posting to

completion: about one week– One requiring major revisions, two

minor revisions

• Whitepapers– Average Cost $93.72– Average words: 3162 – One requiring significant revision

• Posting frequency up to 2.5 times per week

Wish a tank of gas was that cheap?

Results So Far

Marketing - PR Staff

Other Staff

Zerys

GWI Blog Posts by Content Source

Keyword Google Ranking 12/31/2010

Google Ranking 1/17/2011

High Speed Internet in Maine 2 1

Broadband in Maine 3 1

Internet access in Maine 1 1

Business phone service in Maine 5 1

Internet providers in Maine 2 1

Phone and Internet Services in Maine 5 1

The Fastest Broadband in Maine 1 1

Hosted PBX in Maine 2 1

Cloud Computing in Maine Not Ranked 2

Three Ring Binder Fiber Not Ranked 4

Ethernet over Copper in Maine Not Ranked 4

Fiber optic Internet in Maine Not Ranked 5

Three Ring Binder Fiber 9 5

Data Centers in Maine Not Ranked 7

Hosted Fileshare Not Ranked 17

Phone Systems in Maine Not Ranked 13

Getting there, but still a work in process.

Blogging Works: Results for GWI

Summing Up

• Content outsourcing can be “fuel” ($$$) efficient– Need to monitor time spent in direction, review, and revision– You can outsource education, but not thought leadership

• Zerys is a good tool, but like any tool, it’s in how you use it– SmartPost all the time is too much of a time drain

• The secret to SEO success is hard work– There’s no easy way out – even outsourcing takes time, effort, and thought– Blogging and link building do work

Thanks for listening! Any Questions?