I recently did an interview with Murray Newlands for Search Engine Journal. I encourage my readers to go back to that post on Content Marketing Best Practices and read the comments.
In them, there is more additional important information than there was in the original post. Here are just two I want to call attention to, but I hope you will go and read ALL of the comments. And read the post again. This is critical to your survival as Google continues to take away traffic.
Mary Green commented:
I get worried with content marketing because it seems to be the ‘thing’ now. So many sites focus on just putting out content, whether or not it is useful or of decent quality doesn’t seem to matter.
My reply:
Hi Mary,
I believe there will be great danger in content marketing the way it is currently being handled….(continues with why and what to do about it).
David Leonhardt commented:
There is an irony to this, but the best way to increase search engine rankings these days is to ignore the search engines and market like crazy. Because if you start tweaking your strategy too much to please the search engines, they’ll slap you for it. It’s actually a lot like dating – if you’re too obvious, you’ll just get slapped in the face.
My reply:
Hello David,
I totally agree – and it is because of Google that most aren’t doing what they really need to do. Because they are afraid of being slapped and losing the majority of their traffic, businesses are NOT marketing in their content.
With Google’s monopoly directly providing 65-98% of the traffic to the small businesses whose AdWords accounts I once managed – and much of the rest possibly coming via another site the visitor went through first – they can’t afford to risk 65-98% of their income. So they produce content that does very little for them EXCEPT get links.
I encourage businesses to determine where their potential buyers are and create content that directly markets to those audiences. The challenge with that is the sites you want to have publish it also are afraid of Google (for the same reason – they don’t want to lose 50+% of their traffic) so they don’t want to publish anything that might actually sell something.
For small businesses to survive they must throw off these restrictions. Share the benefits of what you sell or do. Be direct in your call to actions. Actually SELL SOMETHING to those who are actively interested in buying.
I would much rather publish a post about how what your business sells directly benefits my readers – with an intro from me on why that is valuable – and a closing call to action recommending they actually buy something that will provide a solution they need – than another generic post about social media or marketing in general,.
I have to ask for those. No one ever just offers them. They offer “10 Ways to Whatever from Social Media” – not how they used social media to market their specific business or how their social media management tool can help my readers promote their own.
Yes, Google controls the fate of your business – if you let them.
No, there is no other source of traffic that converts so well and is so huge – UNTIL you develop it. You can’t do one thing to replace Google – you must do dozens of things very well.
Those who survive will do so by finding and building audiences that need what they sell. It won’t convert immediately like search – you have to build relationships with those potential buyers over time.
That WILL work – but can you make it work before you lose your search traffic. You better, because you WILL keep losing converting Google traffic over time. They systematically take away traffic on the converting keyword phrases and hand it to big brands. Sometimes they take a little at a time – sometimes as much as 58% – but they DO keep taking it.
Be proactive. Start now. If you’ve already started, develop your skills and get better at everything you do – especially building lists and learning to use them more effectively.
Focus on marketing to your email lists as your highest priority. Keep growing and segmenting your lists to give them what they really want. It is always less expensive and easier to sell to those who are already your customers than it is to find new customers.
Don’t waste any more visitors from social media or search (organic and ESPECIALLY paid) – you MUST get them on your list and keep them there by doing email marketing extremely well. If you think you already do that – make it an art form.
There IS more you can do. That is why I write content for AutoresponderGeeks.com – because we ALL need to get better at using autoresponders and doing email marketing.
Currently there is everything you need to know about what an autoresponder is and how to use one on that site. I’m hopeful that Chris Fong (you know Chris as the owner of Just Retweet) will allow Alaina Frederick and myself to keep adding content on email marketing there.
I understand what we need to do – but not how specifically to do it on each email marketing platform. Alaina has used four different email marketing solutions, so she can write how-to posts for each one. Rebecca Caroe is the top expert on FeedBlitz. Between the three of us, we can all learn to do email marketing with excellence.
If you want to see that happen – and even more importantly, if you want to grow whatever you’re doing – go there. Sign up for the autoresponder series by putting your email address in the box in the top right. And get started immediately.
Imagine the powerful lists I would have if I had actually done that in the 1990s when I first created sites online. Imagine how big my list for GrowMap would be if I had been good at doing that from the start – one month shy of 5 years ago.
Then do as I say and not as I did – just do it. If you don’t know which email marketing system to use go with AWeber. I wish someone had said that to me years ago – and all these years later it is still true. They are #1 for many reasons.
On GrowMap, I use FeedBlitz instead because it integrates Social Media and Email Marketing. It is more complex, but also more powerful. Choose either – but just choose. If you get stuck ASK ME. If I don’t know the answer I know who does and can get it for you.
This is too important to ignore. Please, for your sake, make building a list and learning to market to it your #1 priority forever. It always worked – it still works. Nothing you can do will benefit you and your business or blog more than this one thing.
To make it easy to find again, just click on the AutoresponderGeeks logo below to go sign up for the autoresponder series I wrote that is a primer to doing email marketing better.
Gail Gardner
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the article is a good read!
just be an angel to Google it will just go the right way….
It’s a tough question but you explained all clearly.Quality is always king when it comes with relevance.So there’s nothing more to worry about. But I don’t like the dominance of Google in “Search Engine” world, but currently we don’t have any alternative.
Google is your friend if you tread Google the right way.
Hi Nadia,
I disagree. It is their stated goal to ‘clean up’ the Internet ‘cesspool’ by favoring big brands. So if you aren’t a multi-national corporation their intention is to eventually make you disappear.
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It’s a tough question but you explained all clearly.Quality is always king when it comes with relevance.So there’s nothing more to worry about.
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Google truly is a monopoly nowadays and that might be the actual cause website builders don’t pay much attention to relevance, but rather to link optimization. After all, Google’s crawlers are also bots or robots, which goes to show that they don’t necessarily focus on how much to the point the content is.
Relevant posts and information are king! Just throwing up an quickly made irrelevant blog post or other type of content doesn’t help out anyone. You have great valid points here and I’m glad I’m not that only one that feels this way.
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Usefull article, marketing builds a business! Do not be afraid of Google, if you build a powerfull website Google likes it, dont be evil and Google will be friendly to you. If you are afraid of Google, maybe you gotta be more white hat?
I just had this conversation, I was trying to explain that, yes content is king but if that content has no relevance to your niche or is just plain useless information.
Hello Mohan,
It would be nice if Google cared about legitimate small businesses and did not rule by fear. The problem is they really ARE evil. They regularly take away 58-70+% of the traffic of real small businesses whose owners invested all their time and money into growing them over many years. You don’t have to ever have built links or be black hat to have that happen to you.
It is true that Google is sole online ruler. It is a friend for those who know how to do the quality work and hidden enemy for those who have illegal habits to get high ranking.
No doubt email marketing plays vital role in online business but to build great and original list takes a lot of time.
Sorry Sana. That is what Google WANTS you to believe. They are dangerous to all small sites regardless of whether they build links or not.
Great article. The world of marketing is constantly changing, so you always need to make sure you’re doing it right!
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with the penguin era, content is getting more and more important.. content is really king and more original and usefull the content, google love it. Thks for sharing the ideas. great article!
Hi Gail ,
So true. Google has became a monopoly and really I hate monopolies, because they damage to consumers (no matter the country, product or niche).
But it’s a fact that is the number one and we must deal with it.
I’m going to the email marketing also with autoresponders, so I’m subscribing with my gmail to your autoresponder 🙂
Cheers,
Gera
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Hi Gera,
I need your assistance. I signed up for a client’s email newsletter with my gmail – and nothing. That is when I found out that Google hides most of your incoming email. I see nothing in my inbox; and nothing in my spam folder – but also nothing in “all mail”.
Another blogger mentioned that they installed an email program on their hard drive and pulled in their gmail and were astounded at all the emails from clients and potential clients that they could not see in their gmail account. I don’t recall who it was to go back and ask them to compare “all mail” to what they pulled in.
Just as Google can take away 58-70% of your search traffic, if your subscribers are using gmail they can also hide your email messages. Another nail in small businesses’ coffin. VERY DANGEROUS!!!
In my opinion the concept of “content” implicitly implies that the content is first useful to readers and builds confidence/authority with readers and second useful to driving business/visitors/readers/etc. Garbage content might work for a little while to build low quality links but people are not going to be impressed by viewing a website full of garbage. It’s like going to a website to read spam emails. People don’t read spam in their inbox. They aren’t going to go elsewhere on the internet to read it.
Usefull article, marketing builds a business! Do not be afraid of Google, if you build a powerfull website Google likes it, dont be evil and Google will be friendly to you. If you are afraid of Google, maybe you gotta be more white hat?
If you put a high quality page content,backlinks from ranked pages,sure google will rank your site but it will take some time
This was interesting. Personally, I’ve been far more focused on generating MORE traffic from google rather than finding alternative sources of interaction on my websites. It feels like a constant battle trying to keep up with the ever changing environment google forces on us. Realistically though, after reading this, I can see that perhaps a little too much of my energy has been focused on being accessible to new visitors, and not enough of my energy has been devoted to engaging my current audience.Thanks!
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I am 100% agree with the @Anthony, Quality matters we can’t ignore the importance of the content. Content is win win strategy for our business.
Hey Gail, thks for sharing this info! Totally agree that email marketing is the way! Cheers
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This is something I’ve understood a couple of months ago with one of the latest never ending updates. I have to work without Google becasue simply it’s not reliable and honestly I don’t want to use AdWords.
They want a monopoly and the net as they wish but I’m not interested. I’m using G+ just because of the legend that it might help with ranking but if it’s true they’ll change things again soon.
From the business point of view imho Google is worthless so finding other ways to get traffic is fundamental. Unfortunately the social thing is more or less of the same value needing a lot of time and giving little use, at least on my own website.
It’s difficult for a tweet to be found with all that noise.
Great post Gail. 🙂
Social media has it’s positive impact upon building the reputation of the site well or even drive the customers to the site that boost sales well. I am applying the social media now on my site too. thanks for the valuable comments
Getting the organic traffic plus those who help you earn some leads surely proves to be pure gold. Marketers should try to focus on potential customers.
if you don’t spam and put an original article,i guess Google will rank your site or blog
Definitely some good info here. To many people just throw content together for the sake of filling up the page. Most search engine algorithms are smart enough now to recognize if the article is genuine and has true readability or if it is just being used for seo purposes. Write what people will read and will be interested in reading and the rest will come.
I don’t like telemarketers people, sorry 🙂 They everytimes irritate me.
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JustRetweet and email marketing have been very useful for many companies and upped the ante for those who want to stand apart from their counterparts who do just content marketing. I think all types of marketing are important to delve into and do well in order to have a successful business.
Very most important tips here I really like this post.
Every person need to Be Doing As Marketers.
A great interview and a good writeup. Got to learn many things for a marketer, sorry a better marketer.;) thanks.
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Well, marketing content work, but it’s a danger too, like Marry Green said. I have seen a lot of blog focusing on adding content with a lot of keyword, despite the fact that readers really don’t like this kind of thing….I think you can cut the apple in two 🙂
Basically, we shouldn’t be bothered by poor content like Mary said. Google has it’s own way of prioritizing and sort those quality blogs. Our concern should only dwell on how are we going deliver solutions to our audience through our blogs and eventually turn them into paying customers. That should the main goal. 🙂
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Thanks for the marvelous posting! I seriously enjoyed reading it, you happen to be a great author.I will remember to bookmark your blog and will come back in the future. I want to encourage yourself to continue your great posts, have a nice day.!
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Hi Gail,
I don’t like the dominance of Google in “Search Engine” world, but currently we don’t have any alternative. But yes you’re right, we need to take number of steps so that we can live away from the fear of Google and ends our dependency over it. Email Marketing and Social Media Engagement are two best options that can continue to generate leads and income even though you won’t rank at Google.
powerful tips here I really like the post
every web marketer should read this post
thanks for sharing and have an awesome day ahead 🙂
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I don’t understand why people are afraid of Google? If they know that their strategy is not against Google , why don’t they simply go ahead and execute their content marketing strategies?
-Pramod
I just had this conversation, I was trying to explain that, yes content is king but if that content has no relevance to your niche or is just plain useless information. People need to realize that QUALITY over QUANTITY is always going to be better.
Yes i agree with this ! Quality is always king ! One may run a blog or even run a niche website or an affiliate program or run a business its always quality that makes different from others !
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