Content-as-marketing isn’t new. The promotional tools, though… Those are new. We’ve never had as cool a toolset as we have now. It’s easy to get drunk on the possibilities. Sober up:

Promote Lightly-Branded Content at Top of Funnel

Lightly and non-branded content is a top-of-funnel vehicle. Don’t promote it to a high-intent, bottom-of-funnel audience. You’ll see limited results.

I, uh, tested this while helping out a friend & colleague with a local political campaign.

In our current political environment, I will not share names, but it wasn’t a national candidate, so cool your jets.

She wrote a great piece about a broader political issue in her campaign. We promoted it to everyone except her fans, and it hit a home run. Likes, shares, comments, clicks. I was like Eli Gold.

Then, for some stupid reason, I promoted it to her existing fans. It was a complete dud. No likes. No shares. No comments.

Campaign 101 is to get your name in front of the voters as much as possible. But people closer to the top of the funnel need to see the lightly branded stuff.

It seems obvious in hindsight: The almost converted want answers to product/service questions. They’ll come back for the lightly-branded information later.

Don’t spend dollars pushing lightly-branded content to the bottom of the funnel.

Promote Heavily Branded Content at Bottom of Funnel

Do amplify heavily-branded content at the bottom of the funnel. You’re already directly promoting your product or service (or candidate). But do you promote heavily-branded content that’s not a product description?

Say you run PPC ads for your $900 gaming mouse. You say it’s a great value. You say it’s lighter. You should also promote the case study about a video games star who won a tournament using your product. And the piece about your product research team.

Heavily-branded content seals the deal with almost-customers. Promote it to them.

Create Layered Retargeting Pools

Content of all types is your best retargeting pool builder.

Use lightly-branded content to build one retargeting pool. Then promote moderately-branded content to that audience.

Use moderately-branded content to build another retargeting pool. Then promote heavily-branded content to that audience.

Use heavily-branded content to build your final retargeting pool. Run conversion-targeted, direct-response ads for that audience.

Great Promotion Won’t Sell Rubbish

It’s a tired-as-hell principle because everyone says it: Great marketing won’t sell a crappy product. I promise that the moment brands follow it, I’ll stop talking about it.

Promote the unique stuff. Teach me something. At some point, we all have to produce content that says “be authentic.” We don’t have to waste money promoting it.

Market the well-executed stuff. I’ve never done this (cough), but if you raced to publish something and know it lacks polish, think twice before you spend money on promotion.

Don’t waste money promoting garbage. Content is a product. Promotion helps if you create great stuff, not if you ooze informational mucus.

OK, All Done

I hope this isn’t a tired rehash of things people have read elsewhere. If it is, I apologize, particularly after that last principle. But I rarely see huge content promotion budgets. Spend carefully, and follow the principles.

The post Principles of Content Promotion appeared first on Portent.

Imagine your company being truly data driven.

What does that look like?

Your teams getting the right data they need at the right times to tailor their campaigns to key audiences. Your data platforms talking to each other and getting critical pieces of information integrated. Your marketing strategy being based on actual customer behaviors and anticipated changes to that behavior instead of hunches.

It’s the dream, right?

The Data Driven Marketing Problem

Dreams don’t always match up with reality though.

A recent survey showed that only 11% of CMOs considered their team’s use of analytics to be sophisticated or cutting edge:

CMO Survey Results Courtesy of SpencerStuart

With all the talent and technology available in the marketplace today, there just isn’t an excuse to be behind the curve any more.

What does getting ahead mean to your business?

Well, the same CMOs polled in the survey above expected impact from data to manifest itself in a number of ways. But primarily, better customer experiences, better marketing strategy, better online marketing and even better product development:

Image Courtesy of SpencerStuart

Why hire an agency for analytics?

You could staff up to do analytics internally. Nothing wrong with that. You could hire another general business consultant to do it. Sure.

But will that get you the results you want?

Going back to the CMO survey once more, they were asked who is currently using data to its fullest and affecting how their organizations make decisions. 58% said SEO/SEM marketing practitioners were having the largest impact:

Image Courtesy of SpencerStuart

Why? Because search (SEM), by nature, is an incredibly accountable channel. We have better data collection methods and more data points than almost anybody and we’ve grown addicted to using analytics to get better results for our clients.

Portent has been doing SEO/SEM since search engines were in their infancy. As search engines have evolved, we’ve evolved too. And we worked with businesses in every major vertical to improve their return on marketing investment.

There’s no secret to why we’ve done this so well for 20 years: It’s just a combination of marketing savvy in all channels and using all the great data available.

The post Leading Edge Analytics – Data Driven Marketing appeared first on Portent.

This article is about how we help people navigate our marketing and websites. We start with breadcrumbs. Metaphorical ones. The first little morsels of interest are “breadcrumbs” because, as content, their reach is limited.

These are small, temporal bits of information you distribute for customers to find you online. Your ads, social media, blog posts, brochures, a team member making an elevator pitch or encouraging people to visit a booth at an event – breadcrumbs. They’re all moments in time meant to draw attention.

Moments are not enough.

Think of Hansel and Gretel. They wandered through the forest, having lost their path of breadcrumbs home, until they found a delicious gingerbread house. Unfortunately, there was a witch inside who wanted to cook them in her oven. Breadcrumbs did not serve them well on their journey.

Breadcrumbs disappear. They are not enough to get your customers from where they are to where you want them to go. But who doesn’t love a giant house made of candy and cake? It’s alluring, attractive. However, if you really want to lead people to your company’s equivalent of a  gingerbread house, you need to light the path back, forward, and from any side.

To compete online, you need to provide breadcrumbs AND signposts — those permanent content anchors that help people towards their goals. Then, make helping customers* achieve their goals the focus of your content marketing.

Everything you do, from content to design, UX to marketing, sales to actual product or service delivery should have one primary goal: Build trust with your audiences. Trust must be earned.

In short, if your marketing points people towards a gingerbread house, there actually needs to be an enormous quantity of gingerbread at the end of your path. But if your house is made of black licorice, don’t hide that information from people on the path. Avoid risking the disappointment of licorice haters, knowing that the devotees will be so thrilled to have finally found you!

Use smart content marketing strategy to demonstrate your credibility. Breadcrumbs and signposts are small examples of how content and architecture will help you guide people through a path towards a goal without hovering or interrupting the journey.

*Note: I say “customers” but I mean anyone you want to reach. Be you nonprofit, government, or education, small business or gigantic enterprise – think of customers as people who convert. That can mean making a sale, receiving a donation, or even learning a piece of information you want to share.

Moving on from the Witch: Where’d the trust go?

When it comes to brands and marketing, Hansel and Gretel is a cautionary tale for our time. Most consumers don’t feel empowered. They feel consumed. So many brand promises turn out to be for the company’s benefit with no real value for the consumer. “Give us your eyeballs, email address, time, money,” marketers cry, “and tell everyone how great we are!” Even the good guys do this. What are we giving people in return for their engagement?

Think about your own time online. How often do you check a social media channel to see what your favorite brand is doing? Or are you there to check on friends and family? Get resources and advice from colleagues and professional heroes?

Maybe you’ll accept a commercial as long as you’re entertained.

Entertained.
Not interrupted.
Not irritated.

If you want your marketing to work, you’ll need to entertain without making people feel like you’re blocking their progress. With all these branded breadcrumbs being thrown around, it’s hard to get anyone’s attention. You do need to create value through content and promote it on every channel your customer regularly visits. But in a world of irritated people, what are ads good for now?

They’re still relevant. They remind people you’re out there. You have a lovely gingerbread house down the path and it’s full of tasty, delightful things they want, maybe even need. Plus, it’s real. Use ads–and other breadcrumbs–as attractive signals in your master marketing plan: Point these signals to even more useful, engaging chains of content.

Show people that your marketing is here to provide for them, not consume them.

How It’s Done: 3 steps to creating the path

Start by knowing the architecture of your content, from the central point to the temporary promotions. To succeed, you need to be sure that the labels, paths, and links are all clear. The content on the pages should be helpful and directional, not just aesthetically pleasing.

Know what content you want to share? Awesome, let’s map a path to it. (Bonus: Eventually, you can create as many paths as you like, as long as you understand your own content map.)

Consider your customers’ needs, language, and channels, then…

• Choose your central point (house)
• Create relevant anchors (signposts)
• Plan your promotion (breadcrumbs) for the channels customers actually use

Your Central Point (Gingerbread House)
This web page or point of sale will fully describe the product/service available and provide a way to take action. It’s useful and functional. Best case scenario: it answers customer questions, helps them make a decision, and makes it easy for them to take the next step.

For most of us, this is the ultimate conversion point to which we are guiding people.

Content Anchors (Signposts)
Evergreen content on your website moves people forward to the central point. It answers questions, aids decision-making, and points towards desired action.

It can also point them to pieces of information they may need in order to make a decision. It must have a clear call to action, but its message is helpful, not sales-focused. We’re not at the “close the deal” stage. You can use blog posts, webinars, slides, one-sheets, or useful guides and tools as anchors – as long as they subtly lead to the central point.

Evergreen also means you will maintain these assets. They will remain accurate, up-to-date, and functional at all times.

Promotional Content (Breadcrumbs)
Now we can have fun! These are temporary points of contact that lead people towards the lights or the house. Make informative entertainment over interruptions – from banner ads to meta descriptions, social media posts to landing pages. It’s okay to be playful. This means help someone enjoy the work it takes to learn something new. Be that fun teacher, the one you still admire.

Action Plan: An example content path

This is sample campaign model in which I am selling gingerbread-house themed cupcakes. They feature an adorable little candy house on top of a delicious cake.

House: Order form. My website has a kickass order page and cart. The shopping system is intuitive. It is quick, easy, and provides the right information for someone to understand how to order and how/when it will be delivered. You can easily access ingredients and preparation information from the form.

Signposts: Web pages. I have a page dedicated to the gingerbread cupcake – the images are mouth-watering, the messaging is clear, the tone is fun-loving. If you want to order these for your holiday party, school function, or a dozen for your own darn self – our page outlines the options clearly and makes it easy to get to the next step. We also have multiple evergreen pages showcasing these and other cupcakes.

From our story in About Us to content about ingredients to our party planning guide, we appropriately point to the order form on each page. We make it very easy for people with allergies or food-sourcing and preparation concerns to see how we work. And if you don’t like gingerbread, it’s always easy to navigate to our other selections.

Breadcrumbs: Winter is the season for gingerbread houses. Our planning and content creation started in August for a November launch. After Halloween, we began teasing the cupcakes through appropriate ads, social media posts, contests, and free samples at our locations.

We gathered testimonials from last year’s customers and showed this year’s creations being made in our test kitchen (bring on the Vines!). We even taught people how to make their own versions on our blog and YouTube channel. We offered an email sign-up list for notifications. At launch, we held and documented a party where our first customers decorated their own cupcake tops.

And we subtly pointed to our signposts in these posts. After launch, we were able to send some ads and posts directly to the order form.

The central theme here is: If you are looking for gingerbread cupcakes, you can find us. If you’re excited about gingerbread cupcakes, we will help you make them or make them for you. We’ll be transparent, helpful, and quick from time spent viewing content to final product delivery.

Content Marketing: Findable, useful, and generous

Content Marketing just means drawing people to you with your content. To do that, you need to structure images, language, and code so that your work is findable. You will prove that you are useful by creating content based on what your audience wants and needs to get done. In drawing them to you, you make a promise with all of your content points that you want them to succeed.

Online, you can’t hold someone’s hand throughout their journey. Getting their attention and leading them to your conversion point is difficult. Mistrust. Competition. Information Overload. Other people are getting in the way of your ideal customer. Be better than that.

Provide clear paths to content by planning first, creating second, and drawing it together with a cohesive map. In all of your content, seek to be clear and helpful. When someone sees your ad, clicks your link, gets to your destination – make sure they will find exactly what they thought they would. Every time.

Be the gingerbread house, not the oven.

Map your path: From central point to promotional venues

Find your signposts and plan your next breadcrumbs with a content inventory and strategy: https://www.eigene-homepage-erstellen.net/data/content-inventory/

Need help? Contact us for a UX Content Audit or Story Package that helps you build evergreen and promotional content.

More Content Marketing Resources

Map your Content with the Content Analysis Tools for Inventories and Audits: https://www.content-insight.com/

Content Marketing and Strategy: GatherContent
Content Strategy: The Content Strategy Toolkit by Meghan Casey

The post Realistic Conversion: Guiding Paths in Content Marketing appeared first on Portent.

Or, “How I Became a Certified Jedi Knight”

Yay! Star Wars!

I can’t wait for The Force Awakens! It comes out in a couple weeks and I have totally bought into the hype. I know I’m not alone, even after a certain late-nineties, floppy-eared, backward knee-walking, CGI disappointment, who shall remain nameless.

Now here’s the really fun part. A few days ago, 15 years after seeing A New Hope, I became a certified Jedi Knight. And I did it for professional reasons.

A universal marketing goal: The droids we’re looking for

Reach and retain more prospective customers, increase website traffic, increase conversions, and increase revenue.

These universal goals for digital marketing should sound pretty familiar. And as an SEO strategist, there are a couple big things I need to help get you there.

First, some future-proof SEO.

Future-proof means using foundational tactics (not gimmicks or loopholes), clearing a path for search engine bots and humans to find every valuable page of a website, connecting them to the relevant content they’re looking for, and growing a site’s authority honestly and organically. Future-proof SEO is as relevant years into the future as it was a long time ago and far, far away.

Secondly, I wantneed to know what makes your business amazing.

To do the best work possible in SEO, just as in every other facet of marketing, I need to have an understanding of my clients and their websites, but more so who they are and what sets them apart in their market. Businesses wantdeserve a team that understands their KPI goals, but also their mission. Someone who knows them well enough to connect them with that unique, “weird” audience that fits them so perfectly. To that end, I get to know each client’s website inside and out, but I also make it a point to understand what makes them unique and relevant to searchers.

So what is the Universal Life Church and why do they matter?

One of my SEO clients is the Universal Life Church Monastery, and if you think that you haven’t heard of them, you might also believe that Greedo shot first (of course that is ridiculous, everyone knows it was Han).

The ULC is a non-denominational, non-profit religious organization that provides free and legal ordinations online. They’ve even ordained the likes of Conan O’Brien and Kathy Griffin. There is a pretty good chance that someone you know has been ordained by them, or you have been to a wedding officiated by one of their ministers. Before I even knew who the ULC was, both of those things were true for me. They are everywhere.

Almost immediately, I found that there were a few things that I personally and emotionally latched onto with the ULC’s message & mission statement. Their core belief is that “we are all children of the same universe” and two of their tenets are to “do only that which is right” and the First Amendment’s freedom of religion: to each their own.

The Universal Life Church also doesn’t take themselves too seriously. They truly know who they are, and they know who their customers are. How cool is that?!

What a shame it would be if I tried to change their site, in the name of SEO, into something that no longer represents them or celebrates that message as loudly as possible. No, my mission is to understand and embrace what makes them awesome and to be their ambassador to a galaxy of people who are just their kind of weird and cool.

So, just to recap, the ULC provides free ordinations, Freedom of Religion, and… Jedi Knighthood?!?! Holy beek-monkeys!

Who wouldn’t want to be a Jedi Knight?!

Well, I did not see that coming! Maybe there were more midi-chlorians pulling me to the ULC than I realized… And then, the more I thought about it, the relationship between SEO and the Force got closer and closer.

• SEOs attempt to influence the search universe around them through unseen ranking signals.

• There are groups of people out there who believe SEO is either a hoax or has long since died off.

• Some use their skills honestly, only for knowledge and defense, while others use the Force for aggression and personal gain, leading them to the dark side.

• Those who are on the side of good tirelessly work to serve others and seek to improve themselves through constant training.

So, yeah, now I’m a certified Jedi Knight (along with the entire Portent SEO department & ULC team here). It just made sense to me. No midi-chlorian blood test required. No need to pass through the ranks of Youngling and Padawan. Straight on to Jedi!

R2-D2 marketing (Weird, Useful, Significant)

At Portent, we talk a lot about the idea that marketing should be weird, useful, and significant. Yep, it’s literally on the home page.

When I say weird, I don’t mean the drummer in the Cantina band. I’m talking about holding out an authentic and unique piece of yourself and your brand, and flying that Rebel flag for any like-minded souls to rally around.

For useful, I’m talking R2-D2 useful. Even though he was built for just starship repair, using only those skills and knowledge, the little guy just kept showing up to be an incredible help, whenever and wherever he could.

Significance is all about showing up, over and over, until you’re an irreplaceable partner to your customers, prospects, and industry.  R2 quietly went from a very out-of-place astromech, to one of the most amazing, indispensable sidekicks in history. We could all learn a little something.

I know that every company is unique, occupying its own galaxy in the middle of a universe of intersecting values and audiences. But by getting to know and actually understand my clients and what makes them remarkable and important, I get to live their brand along with them. And that makes me 100 times better at both telling their story and meeting their goals.

May the Force, and marketing success, be with you.

Postscript:  I just got back from Disneyland, where it has been declared the “Season of the Force.” You should totally go. Also, don’t worry, I bought my kids the requisite BB-8 water bottles, and rode the revamped Hyperspace Mountain. Twice.

The post The Rank Awakens: Living the Brand with Universal Life Church appeared first on Portent.

What does WordPress do for you?

As one of the most popular content management systems in the open-source market, WordPress allows clients to update their content in real-time, avoiding the dependency of a developer and the overhead involved. Clients are able to adapt quickly to events, sharing thoughts, ideas, and promotions, in a matter of minutes. Additionally, WP has a strong community of developers, enthusiasts, and supporters who help with anything from extended functionality to general support. Let’s say you want to add lead capturing forms, a photo gallery, or a community forum. WP makes it super simple.

As a client, why do I want this?

I need better blogging capabilities on my site.

WordPress was originally designed as a blogging web application. It has come a long way since its beginnings to offer a much more complete content management system, but its origins lie in blogging. This is probably the most popular use of running WP in parallel, as many sites have WP installed in their “brandname.com/blog” sub-directory. Many times, this makes the blog look and feel different than the rest of the site, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I need to run a digital campaign or microsite.

Your company has a large legacy site that has been around since that mega site redesign back in 2012. It took a year to design and develop, and processes are well in place. It works well, but lacks the flexibility to create an exciting marketing campaign advertising your company’s latest endeavor. You want similar branding, but a sexier grab-your-attention look. Something new. Something fresh. WordPress can offer this capability while leaving the main site alone, allowing a simple and easy-to-use solution and a dynamic platform where you can go “full-marketer”. This is just one example of why a client would want to use WP alongside their current site. Whether it’s flexibility in a site for a specific promotion, the need for a new look and feel, or the combo of the two, there are plenty of valid reasons to have microsites running alongside your corporate site rather than letting them sit fully separately.

I need full control of all my top-of-funnel site content for marketing.

Web applications have been built to function in a very specific way. Online retail, information processing, report generation, wikis, and webmail are just a short list of all the specialized web apps out there. Many of them gave no forethought to marketing content and SEO concerns, which may be a reason you are reading this article now. WordPress can be installed in parallel to solve this issue, giving you the reins on your content and SEO capabilities.

So, can you do this?

Simply put, most of the time, yes you can.

I say this because there are basic requirements that are necessary to host WordPress, but most hosting environments fulfill them. It is highly likely your site is served by Apache or Windows IIS. Ask your server administrator to find out if your hosting environment has these technologies:

• Apache, IIS, or nginx
• PHP 5.4 or greater
• MySQL 5.5 or greater
• mod_rewrite Apache module or equivalent

Are there any downsides?

Running WordPress in parallel will most likely cause a dip in performance, as it requires more resources from your server. However, if kept in check, it should only be a small hit. Of course, having a second system requires you to manage and maintain both — and it is important to keep WordPress up to date for security reasons. Also, if you mimic a design for the WordPress install and need to make changes, they will have to be done in two places. Maintenance and updates definitely create more overhead with each additional parallel application put into play.

Other Solutions?

If you’re not installing WordPress on the same server as the main site, there is really only one other solution that tandem applications accomplish, and that is configuring the existing setup to serve WP via reverse proxy under a virtual sub-directory. The idea is that you have a sub-directory (like “brandname.com/blog”) serving a WP application that is hosted on a separate server, maintaining the SEO benefits with URLs that are under the top-level domain. This is an advanced solution that requires the aid of smart server administrators, but it is possible. Personally, I have only configured this solution in a dev environment with the main site being hosted on nginx.

If you’re in a pinch or just roadblocked on being able to set up WordPress in parallel, a sub-domain microsite is an alternative solution. This would allow you to host the site anywhere because you can point a sub-domain (or new domain) to any IP you want. From an SEO perspective this is not ideal, as link authority is lost because most search engines like Google treat sub-domains uniquely. Technically, this doesn’t qualify as running WordPress in parallel.

Conclusion

This may not be an ideal solution, but it can prove to be the best choice for companies and marketers in situations like the ones discussed in this article. When budgets and timelines come in to play, it is definitely worth weighing, especially for companies that recognize they need to adapt and catch up with best practices. It is important for companies to work with developers who understand the need to be agile to handle the needs of marketers. And yes, for the record, we’ve run into a handful of scenarios where it made sense to help clients go this route, rather than waiting years for a full site overhaul.

The post Can and Should I Run WordPress in Parallel with my Existing Site? appeared first on Portent.

Let me start with a disclaimer. If you haven’t started blogging, get a plan together and start. Don’t write just for the sake of writing, but create a strategy around what you’ll write about and then actually do it. Publishing content on a regular basis benefits search engine visibility and audience building.

If you are already consistently publishing content but haven’t made any changes to your blog’s structure in the last few years, I’ve got a painful truth to share:

Your blog is boring.

It’s not the content I’m talking about – it’s the layout. It’s the way that I can’t find what I want before you push the latest five posts on me. It’s that it isn’t fun anymore.

The formula for setting up a blog is simple. How many times have you seen this layout?

The problem here is that the format doesn’t encourage interaction. The setup is almost exclusively one way – you telling the customer – and it doesn’t help users find the answers to their questions.

Now this isn’t to say that anything is fundamentally wrong with blogging this way. Heck, as of this moment this is the baseline format that we use at Portent. Creating fresh and relevant content helps customers find you.

But lots of times, those same visitors come to your site looking for answers to questions. And that’s where your business has the opportunity to shine.

Once you’ve published a certain volume of content and established a diverse set of audiences, it’s an ideal time to change the organization of your blog to focus on the answers your visitors seek. If you’ve established a blog structure that looks like the one above, let’s take it to the next level.

Why is a hub better than a blog?

Content hubs focus on the customers’ needs and interests. That’s what it’s all about: making the content and answers your customers need easy to find, visually appealing, and entertaining.

Here’s a potential content hub. I say potential because hubs should be very customer centric and change depending on your audience.

Simply put, this is more fun. It’s interactive and gives you the flexibility to present lots of different types of content to your users. It’s modular, letting you plug various components into the layout for a cleaner aesthetic and better usability, giving the users more relevant choices instead of asking them to scroll.

With the intense amount of content being produced every day, anything that isn’t relevant is just noise to be quickly ignored or forgotten. We all see this. The millions of blog posts and videos uploaded daily are overwhelming.

Don’t contribute to information overload. Instead, help your users navigate your content. Whatever you put in front of your visitors needs to have immediate, obvious value or else it gets ignored.

There’s a reason Google doesn’t simply include the very latest news articles or blog posts on their home page. Users coming to their site have a question. Google doesn’t presume to know that answer before you ask it. (At least not until you type the first word, and it starts contextually guessing questions for you).

Some content hub examples

To give you a better model, these companies are doing it right. In fact, this article took me longer to write because I kept getting distracted diving deeper into these hubs.

Home Depot

Any DIY fan can use this resource. Whatever your project is, you can quick search for topics and tips from the pros to make your renovation shine. What I love about this content hub is the giant search box guaranteeing you will get an answer. It doesn’t assume the visitor’s interests.

And from a research standpoint, think about all the data you can capture in this search box. You will get useful insights into what people look for when they come to your site that you can turn into an endless stream of content topics and ideas.

Porch

The Porch layout is really, really ridiculously good looking. Like Derek Zoolander good looking.

It also has just about everything that someone would want in a content hub, and then some. My favorite part about this content hub is how modular it is. There are blocks of content that each serve a different purpose and can be swapped in and out based on context, user queries, CRM data, etc. Testing content blocks to the extreme is possible with this layout.

REI

With images that actually make you stop and appreciate the scrolling header, the REI content hub does not disappoint. It includes a few suggested blog topics on the left-hand side, but what I enjoy most is the clean design. It keeps the user focused on the emotional, visual story in the pictures, but also on the search bar at the top where you can get your questions answered.

GE Reports

I never thought I could be so interested in a B2B content page, but I find myself clicking-through page after page on the General Electric hub. One item that I find unique, but fun, is their use of GIFs as featured images. The page feels alive with the moving pictures and makes me stop to read more.

How to start building a content hub

Reworking your blog into a content hub takes some initial research and planning.

• Step 1: Take an inventory of your current blog posts.
• Step 2: Find our what your audience is searching for through search logs.
• Step 3: Determine what content pieces your audience is reading from analytics.
• Step 4: Talk to your customers to gain more insight into their questions.
• Step 5: Identify strengths and gaps within your current knowledge base.
• Step 6: Create a content strategy.

When done right, a content strategy surfaces content that is the most relevant, most useful, and most engaging to your customers. That’s what I love about it: getting the right content in front of the right audience in an engaging and fun way.

A content hub isn’t replacing your blog with a glorified search bar. It is about creating the best possible user-experience, specific to your audience. Remember, always begin with a content strategy, and the humility to ask your users what content is most valuable at that moment. Eventually, you’ll place the most relevant content at the front, and build a repository that will grow and support your users.

If you’d like to learn how Portent is playing with the concept of creating better user experiences, check out this post about our new contextual site search.

The post Your blog is boring. Upgrade to a hub appeared first on Portent.

One thing is clear: I am not the same person as I was 10 years ago and Portent has changed a lot too. Here’s a look at who we were and what we’ve become.

Fostering relationships

One of my first calls that I took was a legacy client from the east coast. Something about his demeanor and how he said “I need to talk to Ian NOW” made me cry. I wasn’t used to those types of calls. Now when that SAME client calls, I know he is a super nice guy who has an east coast edge. I know what to expect when I see his number come up on caller ID.

What happened? I grew as a person. I built a relationship with the client. We have caller ID. We’ve done great work for that client for MANY YEARS.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am good at building relationships. And over the course of the last 10 years at Portent, I’ve done that with co-workers and many many clients and vendors.

Raising the bar

When we moved Portent to a new building, literally 2 blocks away, we had to hire a moving truck and coordinate the 18 employees we had at the time. During one of the last visits to the new office before we moved, I remember Ian saying he would take one of the smaller offices. I told him he was crazy! The President should have the corner office with the windows. He accepted this.

Along the way we’ve learned that we had to think like we were big stuff to raise the bar of our internal expectations and those of our clients. If we didn’t think bigger than we were, we were never going to grow. So first step was to get the President out of his “building it in the garage” mentality. We needed to believe in ourselves and our clients. The more often we do that and think of ourselves being amazing, the more amazing work we did and the more amazing we became.

Before it was cool

My husband and I are early adopters of lifestyle things. We were really early customers of Netflix, we were in love with Kozmo.com, we got the first edition iPhones, etc. And because of Portent I’ve become an early adopter of professional things like social media and new web ideas. When I first told my husband I’d signed up for a Facebook account, all I got was a blank stare, like “What is the purpose?” Now he is a much more active user than I am.

Some examples of how Portent has stayed ahead of the curve:

• Less code = better: Even way back in 2004, Ian was sharing with the whole company that less HTML code is better for SEO. When search engines now talk about load times and the benefits of clean and easy code, we nod in agreement.
• CMS what? Early on, the Portent team had to teach and train clients how to effectively update their sites and most of the time no one knew what a CMS was. It was completely foreign to me as well. But after dozens of different ones, I’ve become pretty knowledgeable and can train clients on them. We have favorites (WordPress) and a slew of least favorites I won’t name here and we’re always excited about learning the next new CMS.
• High quality content: Anyone who has been a reader of this blog for even a short time will know this message, “High quality content is king.” Ian’s been preaching that line since he started to blog. Since I’ve been at Portent, we’ve educated clients about the value of content and now the search engines are singing the same tune.

Thought leaders

We have some pretty smart folks here at Portent. I’ve learned so much from my fellow teammates and hope they’ve learned a few things from me as well. Late in 2004, Ian launched Portent U (Portent University). These are training/teaching sessions Ian started to impart his knowledge on us. Nowadays everyone on the team shares their unique expertise with the company.

Not only do we share knowledge internally but externally as well. Over the years we continue to participate in conferences and trainings with clients. This is one of the key things I think makes Portent stand out. We share with both the industry and our clients. We don’t just want our clients to make more money or get more leads, but we want to help them understand the basis of what we’re doing for them.

Title-smitle

Portent Org Chart circa 2005

I started at Portent as “Business Coordinator,” became a Project Manager, Account Manager, Traffic Coordinator, Senior Traffic Controller, Account Manager, Account Strategist and now Senior Project Manager. Through all of these titles, through all the years, what hasn’t changed is my focus on getting things done, getting things for folks who need to get stuff done, and helping out as much as I can.

Winding down

Time flies when you’re having fun. It’s still amazing to me that 10 years have gone by. It wasn’t all trainings and building websites, we did (and still do) have a good amount of fun around here.

Quake, Penny Poker, Foursquare (the game not the app): These were things we did as a small office at the end of a Friday or project completion to celebrate. Foursquare was played to enjoy the sunshine and get outside. I still find pennies in my drawer from the days we would gather around a small table and play poker with penny bets.

Cold-Stones Throw Away: We once had a couple of employees take an afternoon stroll to Cold Stone by our Tukwila Office. What they didn’t realize when they started was that it was 2.4 miles away. Once there and realizing the frozen cake they procured was going to melt on the way back they dialed the office to have someone pick them up. I drove to get them and laughed the whole time until they were in my car.

It’s impossible to tell how much Portent and I will change in the next ten years, but I look forward to sharing a lot of good times with co-workers and clients along the way. Though I may be considered “old hat” I love the fact that I’m known as the Portent Dictionary or that people come to me and ask me questions. I’ve been told that if I don’t know about it, it likely doesn’t exist. I like being the know-it-all.

The post My Ten Years: A Look Back at the History of Portent appeared first on Portent.

Over the years, however, I’ve developed some project management skills that have come in very handy with the little one.  Below are five of the biggest.

1. Write it down, somewhere

Parental brain exists. Whether it is due to lack of sleep or too many to-dos, you can’t remember everything. So write it down.

I use Evernote for my client agendas, recaps, and things I need to remember. I also create shopping lists, make journals for what I want my daughter to learn someday, plan parties that may or may not happen, and generally ramble.

2. Plan in extra time

Ever since a long-term client told me how much she appreciated me being early to meetings, I’ve made it one of the things I just do. If I am late, or even on time, I feel terrible. And so far, there have been only a handful of times with my newborn that I’ve been late. I actually remember more times where I’ve been early, with husband and daughter in tow, and have arrived before my friends/family with no kids! How do I do this?

Well, at work, I give myself 15 minutes before a scheduled call to prep docs, load the screen share, and dial in. I find if I have less than 15 minutes, I feel rushed and often have technical issues. At home, I plan an hour before things to start the process of getting going. Sometimes, we wait around twiddling our thumbs (or the baby chews on mine).

3. It takes a village

Raising a child for the first time is like walking in a forest with no lights. Unless you have a guide, you will trip over a lot of roots. Baby group classes have stopped me from thinking that “no one has ever experienced this” (that and random 2 a.m. searches for “my baby does ­­­­________”).

Running successful Internet marketing projects also takes a lot of super-smart people. Fortunately, we have that at Portent, and getting different departments to weigh in on things (even when they aren’t part of the project) can help bring better ideas.

4. Build relationships

I’m surprised by how many of my clients are interested in baby updates on our regular calls. Almost every one includes a “how’s the baby?” But when you build great relationships with clients, they do care – and the work we do together improves. Here at Portent, I feel like we do a pretty good job of that. We genuinely like our clients.

5. Get creative

Sometimes you just have to have fun. Being too focused on a specific contract or to-do list can stifle creativity. You may need a break from your ordinary routine to move a campaign further.

With my daughter (and any baby really) I always find it amazing just how silly adults can be. We make up songs, make funny faces and noises, and generally do ridiculous things just to make those little faces light up!

These are just a few of the things that have helped me as I have taken on this new role of parent. If you are a parent, what are some things that you’ve learned in your work life that have helped in your parent life? I’d love to hear and learn from you, so please share in the comments.

The post 5 Project Management Tips from Portent’s Newest Mom appeared first on Portent.

The following posts were chosen based on social impact, traffic generated, breadth of topic, and overall quality. Some of this information was gleaned from Ian’s Top Secret new tool the Content Inventory and Audit (CIA)… get a free sneak preview here:

The posts below are not in any particular order.

1. How to Write an Effective Outreach Email [Instructographic]

Writing an outreach email is an important skill to have. If you think your ability to craft a well-written email is lacking, don’t worry — our Nick Bernard has you covered.

2. Why Tom Cruise Should Be Your Content Strategist [Infographic]

Is it possible to compare a content strategy to an actor’s career? According to Katie Fetting, if that actor is Tom Cruise, then it’s definitely possible.

(P.S. Thanks to Jess Walker for her graphic genius on the instructo- and infographics above.)

3. Manage Stuff, Lead People: How to Turn Workers into Leaders

As their tenures lengthen, some of your employees may want to transition into a managerial role. Portent’s president, Steve Gahler, explains why being able to set goals, recognize potential, and foster growth is key to your company’s success.

4. Weird, Useful, Significant: Internet Marketing in 2013

Avoid becoming another voice shouting into the ether by being weird, useful, and significant.  The post and accompanying slideshow are by our CEO, Ian Lurie.

5. How to Blog: Humanizing Your Brand

Writing for a corporate blog can be a challenge, especially if you’re writing as the corporation itself. Isla McKetta instructs you how to free yourself of those restraints and start blogging like a person.

6. Why Web Professionals Hate SEOs

SEOs get a bad rap from a variety of web professionals, sometimes without knowing why. George Freitag reveals what they do that causes the animosity.

7. Why You Should Market Like You (Want to) Cook

Marketing is a lot like cooking.  Don’t believe me? Well then you need to read this post by Alexander Nessel.

8. Better Quality Score = Better Results?

We all know that quality score is important, but just how important is it? With this case study of 27 small business accounts, Michael Wiegand finds out what quality score impacts.

9. How Google Ruined Marketing

Thanks to Google, marketing has become a zero-sum game.  But don’t despair: according to Ian, by diversifying your efforts, you can weather whatever Google throws at you.

10. Into The Fold: Why Web Design is More than One “Rule”

Does the fold still matter when it comes to web design?  Our friend RJ LaCount posits that it does, just not in the traditional sense.

Are there any posts you can remember that should be on this list?  Let us know in the comments!

The post Portent’s Top 10 Posts of 2013 (So Far…) appeared first on Portent.

Anecdotally, we hear that people would rather die than have to get up in front of a group of other human beings and make a presentation.

I sure can relate to that! People who know me now might not believe this, but I grew up very shy and I was shaking in my shoes the first time I had to deliver a report in front of the class in school.

But as of today, I’ve conducted 1,893 presentations, classes, workshops, and keynote speeches to groups ranging from only a handful of people to grand ballrooms with many hundreds of people.  I’ve also authored 3 books on public speaking skills.

Public speaking can actually become quite addictive! – But we can all stand to improve our skills.

So come along with me on this fun and adventurous blog post to discover some seriously rad skills to instantly – yes instantly! – improve your public speaking & presenting skills.

I am going to point out some common things I see people doing wrong, and outline exactly how to fix it, instantly of course!

More importantly: don’t just learn these skills, use these skills and you’ll definitely become a much more dynamic, masterful, and effective presenter.

Instant improvement #1: No stage prowling

What you’re doing wrong:
That random prowling around the stage you’re doing, that pacing back and forth? – that needs to stop.

I know it makes you feel better and you just “like doing it” but it’s highly distracting. Moreover, it’s detracting from your presentation’s effectiveness. Leave the stage prowling to Chris Rock, okay?

How to fix it:
Map out several spots on the stage and assign an “audience state of mind” to that spot.

Also assign a single spot where you’ll stand and generally present (call that your “sweet spot”).

Those other spots you map out and present from could be an “audience intense curiosity spot” or the “revealing juicy secrets spot.”

You have probably never considered the fact that you should be consistently eliciting specific states of mind in your audience, and that those specific states can be “set and recalled” by using this technique.

Stand still in each spot, and do not mix them up.

Don’t let the seeming simplicity of this technique fool you; it’s extremely powerful. Decide on 2 or 3 audience states (more only if appropriate) that will be useful or important to elicit in your audience, and map those spots at least 3 or 4 steps away from your “sweet spot.”

Pro tip: Get yourself into the state you want your audience to be in when you’re in each spot, or tell a story that elicits that state.

Super-pro tip: You can’t do this if you’re stranded at a podium. Instead, use very specific gestures, facial expressions, and voice tones to delineate and elicit specific audience states.

Super-duper pro tip: Build a chain of states into your presentation that makes sense, such as: intense curiosity, then strong fascination, and then burning desire.

Instant improvement #2: Your voice speed

What you’re doing wrong:
Different people listen at different speeds but you’re only speaking at one speed. That means you’re not “getting through” to 66% of the audience, and frankly you run the risk of annoying a lot of people as well.

How to fix it:
First, you need to understand that not everyone processes information the same way. For brevity’s sake I’ll sidestep the relationship between voice speed and visual vs. auditory vs. kinesthetic information processing.

Just know this: some people prefer to hear a speaker talk quite fast, some prefer a speaker talk quite slowly, and others prefer a more medium voice speed. Vary your voice speed periodically during your presentation. Doing this ensures you reach all listening types in the room.

Pro tip: Varying your voice speed will dramatically increase your charisma.

Super-pro tip: You can combine voice speed variance with eliciting audience states of mind.

Super-duper pro tip: When speaking fast, hold your head still and do not gesture; when speaking medium-speed, bob your head and gesture a lot.

Instant improvement #3: Reaching the 4 processing styles

What you’re doing wrong:
You’re not designing your presentation to systematically include the “why people,” the “what people,” the “how people,” and the “what-if?” people.

How to fix it:
Generally, each person in your audience cares about why, what, how, or what-if information ahead of all else.

For example, the “why people” want to hear about the what and the how, but they badly need you to tell them why they should care, or else all of the what and how info will have no purpose, no meaning, no context.

Similarly, “what people” want the data and facts, and are less interested in the big picture or exactly how to use the data.

The “how people” want to know how to make things work; they don’t care as much about context or the raw data.

The fix here is to be sure to structure your presentation to include data and facts for the “what people,” steps and procedures for the “how people,” and big picture context for the “why people.” A simple Q&A session will cover the “what-if people.”

Pro tip: Always start with why – it sets context and the “how” and “what” people don’t mind waiting through that.

Super pro tip: Sometimes you can combine the why and the what by presenting facts, data, and statistics as the reasons why people should care about the rest of what you have to say / present.

Super-duper pro tip: Realize that “what-if people” will be looking for where things don’t make sense in what you say – they’re not necessarily mismatching you for the sake of being contrary, they’re a valuable asset to you because they’ll help you find holes that you may need to fill in later.  If they stump you with questions, or what-if scenarios you don’t know how to address, thank them and promise to look into it. Then get back to them and you both win.

Made it this far? – Here are a few bonus tips

Bonus tip #1: Scale way, way back on the PowerPoint slides. Only put 2 kinds of things on a PowerPoint slide:

1. Something that will visually explain something that otherwise would take many words to explain – for example, a line chart showing how mobile phones are taking over desktop computer purchases / searches.
2. What you absolutely want your audience to remember. Let me repeat because this is so easy to slide-by: Only, yes only, what you absolutely want your audience to remember.

Frank Sinatra once said “if you need anything more than a microphone and a spotlight, you’re an amateur.”

Make the focus of your presentation you, not the slides we’re busy reading while we’re not really hearing what you’re actually saying. After you put up that slide or chart, blank the screen so people focus on you, so we don’t daydream while looking at your current slide.

Bonus tip #2: Have a single, concise, clear call to action at the end of your presentation. Tell people exactly what you want them to do.

One and only one thing.

Pick what you most want – call me, follow me on Twitter, go buy my book at the back of the room –whatever it is, tell them clearly and concisely what they should do now, do next.

Bonus tip #3: No meta comments

Keep your internal soundtrack to yourself. Avoid saying stuff like “wow, it sure is hard to see you all with the bright lights in my eyes” or “this remote clicker is so sensitive”. Keep that kind of stuff to yourself, and stick to what you want to present.

Bonus tip #4: Assume you have too much material and not enough time

I know for sure someone crams too much into their presentation  when they say things like “wow, I’m running out of time. I’ll have to blast through the next 136 slides I have left” (see bonus tips 1 and 3 above). Sure, you’re trying to deliver as much value as possible, but if you can’t spend adequate time on everything, then you’re short-changing – and frustrating – your audience.

If you don’t read anything else, read this:

One of the top objections I hear from speakers about these skills is “If I do that stuff I’m not being myself / not being authentic.”

I have quite a lot to say about that (aside from how that’s just not true) but for now I’ll leave you with 2 important considerations:

1. Your presentation is about your audience, not about you.
2. If you speak only English and you move to Japan, are you going to insist that everyone speak your language? That’s arrogant and short-sighted. By incorporating these skills, you’re demonstrating behavioral flexibility and you’re putting the needs of your audience ahead of your needs.

What to do now?

In the comments section below, please tell me all the reasons why you think I’m right or wrong! Have a question? Feel free to ask here.

Thanks for reading; I hope you’re buzzing with excitement to incorporate these skills to improve your next presentation!

The post 3 Surprising Ways to Instantly Improve Your Public Speaking Skills appeared first on Portent.