Let’s start with a dead mouse

When you run down to the hardware store to invest in a mousetrap, I’m quite sure you have a very clear idea of what you’re trying to accomplish. So start with the end in mind. (Ick. It’s not the prettiest metaphor I’ve ever created.)

But seriously, killer, do you know what you want your site to accomplish? Every day I speak to business owners and directors who don’t.

Bad answer: we want visitors to learn about our company. Good answer: we want to capture the email address of the visitor so we can begin to nurture a relationship. Though it’s a very smart, strategic objective, email opt-in is just one possible objective. You don’t need to have this objective, but you do need to have one in mind.

Select the most effective bait

Now we’re talking content. Though cheese is a popular choice for mousetrap bait, authorities in the rodent reduction business argue that peanut butter is the best bet for the mouse’s last meal.

The idea is pretty simple. You need to know what will draw your target in. The process of learning exactly what that is should involve research, and then testing. And in the world of online content marketing, both have become amazingly simple.

Rats. I hate to bail on my nifty metaphor so soon, but it’s time to introduce a second one: magnetism. No doubt, you’ve come to know the term “magnetic content.” It’s a beauty in so many ways, the first being the function of a magnet: pulling power.

You give your website pulling power with magnetic content — stuff that not only attracts eyeballs, but eyeballs embedded in the heads of the type of people that truly belong at your site, your target market and, hopefully, your brand advocates of the future.

For this next bit, I want to give big thanks to eMarketer founder, Geoff Ramsey, who co-wrote Digital Impact: The Two Secrets to Online Marketing Success, and present some ideas from his informative article, 2011 Trends: Content Marketing is Critical.

Marketers should ask themselves five questions about the magnetic content they are seeking to create to determine whether it will be truly attractive to their audience:

• Is the content unique?
• Is the content useful?
• Is the content well executed?
• Is the content fun?
• Does the content make good use of the channel in which it appears?

Marketing authorities everywhere — and a booming brigade of companies that now embrace the principles of content marketing and enjoy its profound benefits — suggest you resist the urge to pitch your product. Instead, consider, product aside, what can you do for your customer?

To select the most effective bait, you identify exactly what whets your target’s appetite and serve it up in generous portions.

Be wary of stale cheese

Let’s review. Your site needs pulling power. Now let’s expand the goal. Your site needs to attract qualified visitors and encourage them to stay awhile. But even that’s not good enough. Moving on now: Your site also needs to inspire its audience to interact with the content you put there, bookmark it, share it with others, and return often.

Freshness matters. Think of it as a bakery. It’s the fresh baked goods that’ll produce the aromas that magically waft from the racks and bring people back again and again. Think of it as a newsstand. People will rush to snag the breaking story. Now, think of it as the bait on your mousetrap and, as weird as it sounds, think of the mouse as having a sophisticated enough palate to steer clear of stinky old cheese.

Mostly, you should think of it as a search engine. The one that matters most has been tweaking its algorithm in an effort to recognize the freshness of content. By creating fresh content, you now have a greater chance of appearing in at the top of search engine results for relevant terms.

So your content strategy must include a schedule, and those responsible for manning the site must take an oath to abide by it. In general, you should update the content on your site as often as possible. Blogs are the bomb for this.

Warning: Close your eyes for this next part. It gets gross.

Consider the sticky stuff

You’ve seen those traps where the rodent steps onto an adhesive surface? As you know, the little bugger gets stuck. He’s taken his last step.

While I don’t want you to take this 100 percent literally, I do think a little visualization helps me make my point: A killer site is a sticky site.

There’s no shortage of “how to” material on the subject of stickiness, but today I’d like to focus on the mindset you need to succeed.

In 3 Angles to Create Magnetic Content with the Triangle of Relevance, author Angie Schottmuller stresses that relevance is the key to making content great. She presents a three-part formula for getting people to “click and stick,” whereby you create content for your site that:

• Aligns with your business objective
• Caters to the interests of your target market
• Capitalizes on the “now” — that is, involves an element of timing related to seasons, holidays, events, or what’s trending in the news.

Comfort is another must-have for your ultra-sticky site. If you’ve nailed the relevance requirement, visitors should be saying to themselves, “I should go here.” Next, we want them to say, “I like it here.”

Make your users feel at home on your website. Decorate it accordingly. Don’t make it too busy by bombarding their senses. Show them around. Offer them assurance and invite them to get involved. Ask them questions. Answer them. Give them treats. Ask them to come back often and tell them to invite their friends.

But don’t bombard them with product pitches. Don’t harp on how great thou art. And don’t insist they need to open their wallets in the early stages of your relationship.

And finally, don’t forget flavor

So you got it going on. The stuff that’s going on your mousetrap is all of the above: useful, relevant, timely, and free of charge. Your site looks like a good place to cozy up with some good content.

Don’t blow it now by being bland and flavorless. The cheese needs to be tasty. I hope you’re not laughing at me. I’m serious. The boring website is an epidemic of massive proportions.

In an effort to please everyone, site operators the world over leave out the salt and pepper. It might be deliberate; that is, the mentality is to not risk offending anyone’s taste.

Stupider still, it might trace to flavorless writing. A lot of companies are too frugal to hire a professional copywriter to write the site’s content. You have to admit, these companies do not subscribe to the Content is King mantra. And then you have your inclination to let non-writers, such as the CEO or a product pro, create the content. You need to resist this strategy as well.

You can’t bore people into buying stuff, whether it’s your product or your ideas. If you want people to bite, make your bait rich with flavor.

So tell me, what are you putting on your mousetrap?

Unique considerations for healthcare content

There are a few issues unique to medical and healthcare information you need to consider when creating this type of content:

• Because doctors have many years of schooling and are recognized experts, many people have a natural tendency to believe whatever doctors tells them.  That belief extends to healthcare content on the Internet especially at sites of trusted professionals or organizations like doctor’s offices and health insurance companies. Therefore, it is critical that healthcare content, especially when it deals with diseases or medical conditions, be accurate and have transparent input and/or review by appropriate experts.
• Because people often seek healthcare content when under the stress of discovering that they or a loved one are suffering from a particular condition, it is important to treat healthcare and medical topics sensitively. Humor and a lighter tone are not unwelcome, but they should be limited to appropriate types of content or discussions.
• The availability of medical information online is rarely something that will cause a customer to choose a particular company or healthcare provider. However, the lack of health and medical information may influence an existing customer’s decision to change affiliations.

So what can marketers in the healthcare field do? Here are four examples of companies in healthcare or related fields that make content available to their customers to highlight their value. For the most part, these companies do a good job of providing access to a large amount of information.

WebMD

Designed as a web-based informational service to provide useful content to consumers, WebMD provides content such as news, articles, community forums, and interactive research tools. If  the site suffers any challenges, they are likely due to its comprehensive coverage of medical issues.

Content description: Content on WebMD is created by medical doctors and other medical professionals. To help the reader easily decide how trustworthy and relevant each article is, each article contains:

• Link to sources
• The date of publication
• The name of the doctor who reviewed the article
• The date of that review.

In addition, articles and tools make good use of graphics, photographs, and videos, when applicable.

User experience: Users have several ways to find any one piece of information, giving them choices for accessing content in ways that will be most comfortable for them.

• Powerful search function: Each page includes a top navigation bar with drop-down menus of subtopics. The left navigation bar is contextual — it changes based on what page a user is reading.
• Comprehensive topic browsing: To find information on a specific condition or disease, users can search a Health A-Z section, which lists topics alphabetically. A little bit like a site map, visitors can browse the entire list or narrow down their search by topic or format — Drugs A-Z, Living Better A-Z, Slideshows A-Z, etc.

Available content: Users can access a tremendous amount of content without registering. Users who do register receive access to special communities, a subscription to newsletters, and the print WebMD magazine, as well as access to tools for tracking health considerations like weight loss and vaccinations.

There is even a Games A-Z section, featuring games that actually teach a little bit about health topics like overactive bladder (“Beat the Urge”, which you’ll enjoy if you play “Go”).

Format/Layout: The overall format is clean and, though packed with a lot of information in each of the three columns, it is essentially uncluttered. The center section of the home page is reserved for news, features, and links to the WebMD community and blogs on medical and health-related topics.

Social media: Other than the blogs on its sites, and the articles it syndicates throughout its large network of publishing partners, WebMD’s social media presence consists of accounts on Facebook and Twitter. Unfortunately, the site only links to these through tiny icons at the bottom of its pages. These links are available from any page on the site, but a user might have to scan a while before noticing them. Moreover, when following these links, WebMD puts up a screen noting that the privacy policies on non-WebMD sites are different than their privacy policy. The reminder is useful, but the methodology —opening up two additional windows, one for the site and one for the note — is a bit awkward.

Facebook: 88,523 followers
Twitter: 298,582 followers

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society

The National Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society’s website is designed to provide access to critical information on this disease for two distinct audiences: Consumers and professionals in the field. The foundation does a good job of making the division clear, and consumer information is written in suitably clear, easy-to-understand language.

Content description: News coverage is offered on topics such as clinical trials, legislation, and the society itself, and the site also offers information on issues such as what MS is, how to live with the disease, and how to talk to children who may suffer from or be affected by it.

In addition, the site features a multimedia library that is a useful repository of MS-related online magazines and newsletters (including Keep S’myelin, a newsletter for children), online videos, and other web resources.

Available content: The PDF articles users can download include short author biographies. However, most of the online content does not have author or source information, publication dates, or information about peer reviews.

User experience: The content on the site can be easily shared. For instance:

• Each page has buttons to enable users to share the page on email or via social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Delicious.
• Buttons allow registered users to bookmark content for future reference under My Content.

As far as navigation is concerned, the MS Society site could be more intuitive. There are two top navigation bars, including one at the very top that uses a small typeface. Presumably, this top level navigation bar is for information that is typically accessed less often. And the lower of the two top navigation bars provides the primary information that brings users to the site. Though all of the topics on both top navigation bars seem important.

Social media: The society has a robust social media following, and the site’s Online Community page provides links to just what you’d expect — social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, but also to LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, and Second Life (from the Virtual Worlds link). The existence of a link to the Society’s MySpace page, which does not appear to have been updated in several months, is the only chink in the content/social media armor.

Facebook: 117,957 followers
Twitter: 10,674 followers
YouTube: 103,553 channel views

United Healthcare

As a health insurance company, United Healthcare provides health coverage for millions of Americans. It also provides plenty of health and wellness content on its website, though it can be easy to get lost in the maze of what it offers.

User experience: From the home page, users can link to Health Care Resources, which opens a screen with five links:

• Be a Smart Patient
• Source4Women
• Medicare Made Clear
• Grow Healthy
• United for Reform

Notably, three of these pages take you to separate URLs, with site designs that do not match that of the primary site and navigation structure. This lack of consistency in look, feel, and functionality could confuse  or alienate the audience. “Be a Smart Patient,” for example, takes users to Mychoicenotchance.com,  which contains content like smart patient checklists and a preventative care tool, doesn’t have a clear navigation path back to the site. Users can also follow a link to search for a doctor, but this takes them to a different page (with a different interface) than if they selected “Find a Doctor” on the home page.

The resource sections, “Source4Women” and “United for Reform,” link to pages on the primary website of United Healthcare, using a top navigation bar that has a link to Health & Wellness. That link takes users to sections like “Getting Healthy, Staying Healthy” and “Tools & Calculators”. However, it appears that a lot of the content connected to these categories is behind a firewall and can only be accessed by United Healthcare patients.

Content description/Available content: Source4Women seems to have the most robust content on the site in terms of amount and scope. It includes recipes, health tips, and links to caregiver support resources, among other topics. This section seems to be where most of the health and wellness content is located; however, the section title might alienate the male audience and keep them from searching here, even though they can certainly benefit from the information and resources found here.

Social media: Source4Women has a small Twitter presence (87 followers) and a community section, where users can find its expert blogs. United Healthcare itself does not appear to have a social media presence — no blogs, no identifiable Twitter handle, and no identifiable Facebook presence.

Walgreens

Serving as the online presence for major drugstore chain, Walgreens.com, is a multi-function e-commerce website. But customers and patients seeking more in-depth information can find it through a link (albeit in a very tiny font) to a healthcare portal on the center top of each page.

Content description/Available content: The Health Information home page acts as the table of contents and index for resources, publications, and interactive tools. Some of the content available on the site includes:

• “Health Topics” and “The Health Encyclopedia” enable users to drill down to particular topic they are interested in.
• “The Body Guide” provides an interactive directory to the human body, helping users learn about major body parts and systems.
• “Care Guides” provide step-by-step guidance for managing certain health conditions.

Content on Walgreens.com is created by medical doctors and other medical professionals. Articles contain authors or source references, the name of the doctor who reviewed the article, and the date of that review.

User experience: Navigation is a bit jumbled on the site, and it can be confusing when searching for certain information. For example, there are dedicated links to Drug Information, a Pharmacist FAQ, and a Check Drug Interactions tool; however, these take users to the pharmacy site — where the Health Information navigation gets lost — which can leave a user confused as to how to return to the site. “Health Corner TV” and “Health Newsletters” links also take users to pages that are lacking the Walgreens site’s left navigation bar (Health Corner TV is a different URL).

Social media: Shockingly, there are no direct links to Walgreens’ social media presence on the website’s home page or health information section, even though the company has a Facebook account with a large number of followers.

The company has several Twitter accounts with between 1,000 and 54,000 followers on each, but it is not clear which is the corporate site or which may be individual Walgreen’s stores that have their own social presences. The company also has a YouTube channel with over 6,000 channel views, but users need to go directly through YouTube to find it. Links to these pages from the website would be useful in ensuring users are accessing the proper sites.

Facebook: 1,327,929

Do you agree that this healthcare content is generally in good shape? Do you see the need for a cure? What sites do you think are the picture of healthy content?

The strange thing with all this is that the solution to creating compelling content is so obvious: Use stories and storytelling. Stories are how we convey our deepest emotions and talk about the things we value the most. Everyone has a story to tell. I believe stories are the most effective vehicle to drive the heart of a message to the heart of an audience.  Exploring these stories should be at the core of every organization’s content marketing strategy.

Now let me ask you this: Do you think that you or your business is in touch with its own stories? And can they be told in a way that connects them with their audience in this hyper-connected world? Chances are this might not be the case if you have trouble answering any of the following questions:

• What story really defines you?
• How does your story fit with the heart of your organization?
• How is your story emotionally engaging to your audience?
• Can your audiences retell your story?
• In what ways can they develop trust in your story and act upon it?

Believe me, I know how challenging it can be to produce smart, highly targeted, and truly innovative stories. So allow me to bring all my trials and errors from my own storytelling experiences together in one simple storytelling principle: Only create content that can be regarded as a little gift to your community. It is this type of content that can be used to help you reconnect with your audience and gain (or regain) trust. I like to call this The New Trade.

Trade is generally considered to be an exchange of currency for goods and services, but this is only one way to think of it. Basically, trade is anything that you can acquire by giving up something else. In this sense, information sharing can be considered a trade. But within the New Trade, you do not necessarily have to give up something. You can share something — like information or a story — for free, making it what we commonly call a “gift.”

Making your content a gift

What do I mean by gift content in this context?

• It doesn’t try to sell anything or provide “empty calories” that just waste people’s time.
• It is offered for free.
• It makes your story part of your audience’s story.
• It makes your story emotionally engaging.

Sharing your content in the form of a human story gives others more reason to care about you. And don’t forget — the impression you make will depend on how much you reveal about yourself.

Most marketing content rarely connects with an audience

You know why? Because it doesn’t make them feel anything. People connect with a story when they “feel” your story is credible and when they understand where your messages are coming from. They will make your story their own if they can identify with the elements within the story, respond to the narrative emotionally, and have it serve their interests and agendas.

What helps great content to spread is how compelling and inspiring the message is, not how it slants toward positioning your company as the only one to buy from. Content should make connections. I’ll go even further than that. Content follows connection. First, you need to engage, build rapport, and make your audience trust you.  Pure information or marketing messages do not make that happen. If you communicate in facts and figures, you are communicating “brain to brain. ”  To be a successful storyteller, you need to communicate human to human, heart to heart, and emotion to emotion.

Over the last years, I have tried to walk the talk myself, and here are some of the ways I have been telling my story:

• Archiving dozens of blog posts, and their comments, for my audience to use as a resource.
• Sharing 3-5 posts by other writers every day on Twitter
• Initiating regular discussions with my network on LinkedIn
• Sharing presentations via Slideshare and Prezi
• Sharing all the research I did for my book, “No Story, No Fans,” on Delicious

In telling my stories on all these channels, I’ve shown my audience that I am not a faceless “box house,” simply taking orders blindly and shipping thoughtlessly. I have demonstrated that I am passionate about what I do and how I do it. My stories have given me (and my company) a human face that shows I care. And from the reactions I have gotten, I can tell my stories have become little gifts to the people in my professional network.

Creating your story

So what are the main considerations for creating content that will be perceived as a gift to your audience? Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you choose your focus, design your story, and bring your content from deadly boring to emotionally engaging:

• What was your inspiration for starting your business? What ignited your passion? Did you have an “ah-ha!” moment that drove you in your current direction?
• Have you ever faced rejection? Did you start your business from the ground up? Achieve success against the odds?
• Who helped you along the way? Who was your first customer? When did you clinch that initial big client or order that catapulted you from mom-and-pop shop to having multiple outlets? When was it clear you had built something special?
• What was your first big break? What moved you from the “small pond” to the “big pond?”
• Is there a non-profit organization or cause that your business supports in a big way? What does it mean to you? To your brand?

Telling your story

And once you’ve created emotionally engaging stories, you have to connect those stories to your audience and their interests. Here is what I believe is important:

• Use your story to emotionally engage people enough to keep them reading or watching. Ideally, they must care about the central character, deeply relate to what he or she is going through, and want to see the character solve the problem.
• Demonstrate that you truly care about others by addressing their relevant pain points or connecting your story to issues that they will be familiar with.
• Encourage your audience to share their stories, and pay attention to them. Your story may not be important to other people, but your efforts to help promote their story will be. Whenever possible, use your content to provide opportunities for your audience to comment or provide their own ideas.
• Remember the universal truth: Nobody wants to be sold, but everyone wants to be helped. Create content that answers your audience’s questions, provides them with answers and solutions or demonstrates how your offerings can help them in their every day lives.
• Build trust. Honesty among people is important, but trust is critical for marketers to gain audience support. So make sure your story demonstrates why you are worthy of your audience’s trust.

So what’s your story? What other elements or features do you think are important to create emotionally engaging content? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

The latest change is actually designed to reward, not punish content writers (or at least the ones who are doing their jobs well). In a recent press release, Google states, “Search results, like warm cookies right out of the oven… are best when they’re fresh.” This time around, the algorithm change is designed to place relevance on the quantity of new content a site contains (remember, the focus of the Panda update earlier this year penalized low-quality content, and content farms). It’s been projected that these latest changes will impact 35 percent of all search queries.

For marketers who are constantly updating their blog, social media sites or website content, this is great news. For those marketers who know they should have consistent content but have been unable to produce enough, this change may seem daunting.

To help alleviate some concerns you may have, here are some ideas on how to meet the quality and quantity requirements Google has made mandatory for online marketers:

1. Organize your inspiration

High search engine ranking is driven by having content that’s current and relevant. This means you need to be equipped at all times to blog, tweet, post, and join discussions related to your products, services, and industry. Here are a few ways to stay organized and up-to-date so your content pieces can be as well.

• Sign up to receive Google News Alerts. I receive daily emails from Google containing the latest updates from the topics that interest me: Content marketing, online communities, search engine marketing, and social media marketing. From that email, I skim the article listings for something interesting and add it to an “articles” folder I set up in my inbox.
• Keep an inventory. I keep track of articles that I find interesting whether from Google Alerts, Twitter, Facebook, or other means as a potential blog post or social media discussion topic. To keep my inspiration organized, I keep a running list of relevant links and ideas in my “Marketing Planner” excel workbook (the “Ideas” tab). On a regular basis, and especially when I’m in need of inspiration, I go back to that tab, pull a link, and just start writing my thoughts, reactions, or ideas. This tab is also a great resource to help me organize ideas around white papers or other major projects I have planned because I know what the hot topics of the moment are.

SEO Tip: Whenever you reference an article, post, Tweet, or blog, you give the author a shout-out. This will build your following,  get your content shared more frequently, and add SEO value.

2. Add spontaneity to your strategy

Having an editorial calendar is one of the best ways for you to stay on track with weekly writing responsibilities. However, don’t let the plan get in the way of having a little fun! Since search engines love fresh, unique, and interesting content, let your inspirations get the best of you.

If you feel the desire to write a blog post off-schedule, or update your website with a breaking research report, go right ahead. Want to tweet a cool infographic you just saw, or write an article about a webinar you attended on a whim? Do it. Though calendars are amazingly useful tools, any project manager knows this familiar mantra: “Don’t let the plan prohibit progress.” Sometimes (OK, a lot of times) we can’t foresee when a great idea will strike us. It will only benefit your SEO if you take an idea and run with it before it (and your website) gets too stale.

3. Make your content meaningful, likeable, and link-able

Since you’re likely writing on a number of online channels (an online community, social media sites, company website, etc.), be sure your pieces follow three simple rules:

• Tie your messages together
• Use proper linking tactics
• Keep a consistent style and tone (powered by your keywords).

Here are some ways to do this:

Create, distribute and follow a message matrix. Decide early on within your organization what your main messages will be, and use them as a starting-point for all your content. A message matrix is a document that breaks down your target audiences and includes:

• 5-6 key themes you want to communicate to each group.
• Words that should (and should not) be used in communications
• A list of your keywords to ensure that you’re optimizing the SEO of each and every content piece.

The message matrix helps your style remain consistent because no matter who is writing content or when  they will all be following the same guidelines. Consistency will help you establish credibility with your readers, and the more credible your content the more likely it will be shared and rewarded on search engines with a high ranking.

A sample message matrix

Link less, post often. You want to include links to your content in all your pieces; however, make your linking meaningful. By cluttering your article with hyperlinks, you will only distract your readers and decrease the piece’s relevance. Let your original thoughts shine through, and gently direct readers to other stories that are related perhaps 2-3 at the most (fewer if they are brief blog posts). Since you will be posting content more frequently from now on, you will have plenty of opportunities to give link-love to your other assets on a regular basis.

Again, don’t forget to share the love. Not every link has to direct a reader back to your content; the more you link to another writer’s content, the more compelled they will be to return the favor in the future.

4. Use (but don’t abuse) your keywords

Any SEO-focused writer knows that keywords help you get ranked on search engines and are a great way to get your content in the hands of your target audience. However, keyword usage, like linking, requires a balance if it’s going to be reader and search engine-friendly. Readers may be deterred from reading your content if it’s blatantly riddled with keywords — an annoying distraction that devalues the credibility of your work.

SEO Tip: Do a quick search of your articles to see how many times a certain keyword or phrase appears. How balanced is it in comparison with the length of the piece? If it feels crammed back off a bit. Every content piece you write is part of a bigger marketing strategy, so be sure to look at how the piece fits in the bigger picture and supports that strategy. You may also want to read Jay Baer’s post on the ways SEO optimization tools can help with this process.

5) Proofread

Before you post any content piece, check your links, spelling and grammar. These things matter when your piece is being “graded” on its SEO friendliness. Even better, hire a professional proofreader to review all of your content (here are five reasons you need this).

There are many rules for making your content SEO-friendly, and this entry touches on just a few.  David Reich also has a recent post on when and why your keywords really matter for content marketing and SEO. What are some SEO-factors you feel are most important? Which do you struggle with the most? Post your questions and ideas in the comments section below.

Believe me. I know.  I run content marketing, and I have the blisters to prove it.

If you were to ask me and my counterparts in other companies what our top challenge is the answer would be easy: Producing enough content. The public’s demand for more, coupled with the ephemeral nature of social media distribution, is a brutal one-two punch for those in the trade. Monday’s torrent of attention can become little more than a trickle by Tuesday.

But as I learned in high school wrestling, for every move there’s a counter move. The antidote to content’s short half-life may  not be producing more, but rather keeping the window of consumption open longer for the content you do produce. Here are five practical tips for extending the life of your marketing content.

1. Stagger your distribution

Remember, you don’t only control production; you also own distribution. Because social media is constantly moving, it’s important to distribute and re-distribute to maximize the number of people exposed to your work.

Start by sharing a new piece of content on an exclusive basis with your customers, advocates, and prospects. You may even include a short form to capture a little extra profile information on those who access it. Let them enjoy the privilege of exclusivity for a few days.

Then go public. Here are some ideas:

• Post the resource to SlideShare, and use the embed code to display the content on your blog. Now you can track views, shares, favorites, and comments all in one place.
• Tweet links to the post a couple of times per day for a few days; then, once every other day for the next week or so. Vary the timing to make sure you are sharing during business hours worldwide.
• Post to Facebook and encourage your fans to comment on a specific aspect of the content.
• Layer use the asset to answer highly relevant questions on Q&A sites like Quora and Focus, as well as on targeted LinkedIn Groups. You can even tweet your answers pointing your audience back to the source questions.

2. Use your “re-imagination”

The term  reimagine is lifted out of  Content Rules, by Ann Handley and CC Chapman, and it basically means finding compelling new ways to package your existing content. There are any number of ways in which you can reimagine the content you create; but the concept itself is the content marketing equivalent of “write once read many.” For example:

• Have a bunch of blog posts that share a common theme? Why not roll ‘em all up into an eBook on that topic?
• Maybe you have an eBook that digs deep into a particular subject? You can break out key lines to use for tweets and key chapters to use as blog posts.

Whatever content you have on hand, chances are it can be broken down or recombined to create a way to message on an additional platform without having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

3. Serialize your story

In their bestseller, Switch, the brothers Heath encourage anyone seeking to drive change to identify “bright spots,” or small victories, and then replicate the successes. The same idea can be applied to your content marketing program.

Have you created a video, eBook, white paper, infographic, podcast, or webinar that worked especially well? Do it again, but with a twist  like focusing on a new vertical market or a new demographic group. Then do it once more but with a different twist. Next thing you know, you’ve created a content series. The benefit is that you don’t have to come up with a fresh idea each time; you simply have to iterate on what has already proven effective.

4. Annualize and update

Like serializing content, updating successful pieces annually is another way to get more mileage out of your production. Technology has accelerated the pace of change across most industries, so what was relevant and accurate information one year, may have lost some of its punch or even be completely outdated the next. Yearly updates provide marketers with an ideal opportunity to materially enhance content that has served their audience well in the past without having to start over from square one.

5. Use what others discard

Take a page from the “nose to tail” dining movement and use all versions — even those you might once have discarded — in your content marketing efforts. Publishing the scraps on your cutting room floor provides you with an opportunity to tell the back story behind your content successes.

For example, when my partner Jesse Thomas blogged for Forbes about the making of an infographic, he used nine rejected versions of The Content Grid v2 infographic to tell his story. Nine. It was the detritus — not the finished product — that made his story so powerful.

These are just five tips, but I am sure there are more. What am I missing? Are there additional techniques you’ve used to create more “staying power” for your content?

Include an introductory letter

Whether it’s a magazine redesign or a website launch like this one, introductory letters offer a glimpse of the strategy and aspirations behind new content offerings. In this case, the welcome note that BCG CEO Hans-Paul Bürkner posted on the blog reveals a strategy that reflects content marketing best practices and offers some content innovations in the consulting space.

Reflecting on the daily inspiration that the firm reportedly receives from its clients, Bürkner pledges that the website will be updated at least weekly, and probably more often. That frequency is essential for search engine optimization, of course. But it’s also essential for a firm like BCG with such broad topic expertise and a global consulting footprint to continually offer new, high-quality insights.

Break your website into topics

To help keep the content flowing, BCG has a range of featured topics to write about. For example, to cover the leadership transformation topic, BCG distilled the best practices from interviews with 11 CEO clients and offered the edited videos so visitors could watch what the clients had to say. Other content includes summaries of past articles by BCG authors that have appeared in key management journals like the Harvard Business Review. In addition, the inclusion of interactive graphics offers some nice eye candy and makes it possible to drill down for a deeper understanding of the relevant data.

Market insights, such as what the company provides for the red-hot tablet computer market, are even being released here before all of the survey data is compiled. That makes perfect sense in such a rapidly evolving market where the price:screen size overview reflected in the chart below shows two distinct target markets, which could quickly be outmoded by retail discounting and the next round of product releases.

Source: BCG Consulting Group.

Don’t be afraid to “go retro”

Some of the most innovative content, which does a great job of reinforcing BCG’s position as an in-it-for-the-long-haul strategy firm, are “classic” articles going back to the 1960s. These reprints — some of which are also available as mp3 recordings — feature BCG founder Bruce Henderson and other well-known BCG thought leaders. What’s striking about these articles, such as Why Change Is So Difficult, is how timely and on target they remain more than 40 years later. (Too bad every company doesn’t have decades of relevant content to dust off and repurpose.)

Include small touches

BCG also has a lot of little features that make it easy for users to consume and share content:

• Users can easily share articles via e-mail or the social media portal of their choice.
• Easy text enlargement makes sense for their target demographic.
• By registering and logging in, users can easily save key articles and be alerted when new content is posted on targeted topics.

Don’t overlook your logo

While BCG does a lot of things well, there are things that can be improved. One problem with the site is the confusing dot in the logo after “bcg,” which is highlighted in the welcome letter headline and some other references. But the dot is not in the actual URL, bcgperspectives.com, nor is it in all references to the site. Why make the name of the thought leadership outlet all lowercase without spacing if the name doesn’t reflect the actual URL? There isn’t even a redirect if someone types in the name as it actually appears in the logo.

Thought leadership best practices

Overall though, the site is an impressive repackaging of current insights, archives, and classic thought leadership. It will be interesting to watch if Boston Consulting Group can continue to execute the strategy that they’ve laid out.

In summary, here are some key points content marketers should remember:

• Match content frequency to market requirements and expectations
• Offer content in multiple formats (text, video, audio)
• Deepen your insights by presenting multiple perspectives on a common theme
• Use interactive graphics to serve up data based on reader interests
• Publish time-sensitive insights as quickly as possible
• Mine your decades-old archives for content that remains relevant
• Avoid inconsistent branding elements

During a recent study, we explored these questions across a variety of writers and other content professionals. We worked with the participants to monitor:

• Quantitative improvements to audience reach, engagement, and conversion
• Qualitative changes to their approaches for developing a content strategy.

Our findings were quite revealing: Most writers we worked with didn’t think in terms of establishing a content strategy before they started writing.  Sure, they knew what they wanted to write about and who their target readers were, but the best ways to reach and connect with their audience weren’t necessarily top-of-mind considerations.

Thankfully, there is an emerging category of online content optimization tools that can help increase content visibility in search engines while improving content relevance for readers. Some of these tools include SEOmoz, Scribe, Raven Tools, and Zemanta, as well as some free Google tools. For the purposes of our study, all participants used InboundWriter, a new player in the field, which provides real-time search and social intelligence, as well as content coaching that is easy to use and understand.

Here is how these tools guide you to “optimize” your content the non-techie way:

Focus, focus, focus!

Writer’s challenge: SEO best practices define “keyword focus” as one of the most important things in online writing. And it only makes sense that if you can give readers content that is focused on the words and phrases that they use, you have a better chance of attracting and keeping those visitors. But how is a writer to determine which words to focus on?

How content optimization tools help: Once you specify your topic, you are presented with a virtual thesaurus of words and phrases your target audience uses while searching or sharing (this information is based on historical data from search engines and social networks). In essence, you get real-time access to your customers’ (or rather, your prospects’) words to help you craft your content.

Choose the right keywords

Writer’s challenge: You may wonder how to know which of the recommended words to choose to focus on. The focus terms you select should be in line with your content strategy.

There are two primary content strategies you can use when choosing keywords:

• Optimize for search popularity: This strategy uses search volume in an effort to drive the most traffic to your content. “How often is this keyword searched?” is the key question.
• Optimize to avoid competition: This strategy looks at search volume as well as level of competition (existing web pages that contain that keyword). “Are there keyword opportunities that can be seized upon?” is the key question here.

How content optimization tools help: No need to be an SEO expert! These tools automatically rank and organize your virtual thesaurus based on your stated content strategy, so it will be readily apparent which terms will help you best meet your needs.  Of course, it is essential to set your strategy before you write your content to ensure you are receiving the right guidance.

Use the right number of focus terms in the right places

Writer’s challenge: Engaging content not only requires the use of the right words but also the right structure.

How content optimization tools help: The new generation of content optimization tools provides real-time coaching, so you know where and how often to use your focus terms. The guidance you receive will depend on the length of your content; the shorter your content, the fewer focus terms you should have (and vice versa for longer pieces). For instance, imagine a short piece of content (less than 250 words) trying to talk about two or three topics. That would not make for a very readable piece, and it would likely confuse search engines about the real intent of the content. These tools easily guide you to use the right number of terms based on your document length.

It is also important to use at least one of your focus terms within the first 50 words of the document. Since a focus term is really all about indicating topic emphasis, it only makes sense to do it for your readers.  And search engines also appear to have preference for pages that employ focus terms sooner rather than later in the copy.  Therefore, to help you in your quest to increase content relevance, your new online writing coach will recommend moving up your focus terms if you haven’t already done so!

Integrate focus terms into your title

Writer’s challenge: Your document’s title (aka, the headline or subject line) is perhaps the most important component for communicating what you are writing about both to your readers and search engines.

How content optimization tools help: You guessed it! Including your focus term in your title is likely one of the content coaching tips you will receive when using a real-time content optimization tool.

The results

Following the real-time content optimization guidance, it had a significant and consistent impact on content reach and engagement for our study participants. The results showed:

• Traffic from search engines increased 30 percent or more in many cases, and the improved content relevance led readers to spend 100 percent or more time on page.
• Even paid search impressions increased dramatically despite no change to paid search budgets since optimized landing pages matched the purchased search phrases with greater specificity.

Easy access to search and social intelligence is poised to change online content creation fundamentally. Writers have the ability to create more compelling content when they know the words and phrases their readers use while searching or sharing, or when they can get guidance on how to best structure their content for online visibility.

Whether writing a blog post, updating a website, creating new landing page copy, or crafting a press release, the new generation of real-time content optimization tools can help any writer — regardless of SEO knowledge — develop content that is both more discoverable online and more compelling to read.

*Full disclosure: Jay Baer and Pelin Thorogood consult for EightfoldLogic, inc., the company behind InboundWriter, and Bryan Eisenberg serves on the Eightfold Logic Advisory Board.

How many of you have at least one “goal” set up within your account to track your conversions? Ok, I probably just lost about half of you.

Final question: How many of you have a monetary value or “goal value” attached to that conversion goal? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

In my last post, I showed how to create “conversion paths” within your website’s content to help site visitors complete your desired outcomes. Now I’d like to show you a basic method for adjusting your Google Analytics settings so that you can start answering the following:

• Is my website content driving conversions?
• Which pages in those conversion paths are not “getting it done”?
• How much is a conversion actually worth… in dollars?
• Which inbound marketing activities are delivering quality traffic that converts?
• Which social networks are driving conversions?
• Key question — How much more marketing budget can I ask for next year based on how well I made the connection between online marketing and revenue?

A note before we dig in… I’ll do my best to keep my “geek-speak” to a minimum.

Step 1: Every path has an end

As we are structuring our conversion paths and overall content architecture, most of us are probably trying to guide a website visitor to some sort of end point, such as filling out a lead form, making a product transaction, or even requesting a membership subscription. When a visitor completes your desired action, the standard practice is to send him to a confirmation or Thank You page. From a Google Analytics standpoint, this confirmation page is the true end point. And the URL of that page will be your Goal URL, which we’ll address in Step 3, below.

Note: To follow my process, you’ll need to be able to get to that final page URL. So if you’re actually walking through the process while you read this article, do whatever you need to do to get to the Thank You page (dig into your website files and templates, or just complete the conversion yourself). When you get there, copy the URL to your clipboard.

Step 2: What is each conversion worth in dollars?

Anyone good at fuzzy math? I say that because tracking actual ROI in Google Analytics, down to the dollar, is fuzzy at best. We’re really just trying to get a general sense of how your website is performing, using lead-to-close ratios and average transaction amounts, so that you can start “sniffing dollars” (as Jay Baer says). Let me throw out an example here with simple round numbers.

Let’s say your company sells a variety of products, and your average sale amount is $1000 (per transaction). You have a lead form on your website that starts your sales process. Historically, your lead-to-close ratio has been a steady 10 percent, meaning that out of 10 lead form submissions, one of them results in a sale. With these numbers, we can now calculate your average goal value:

$1,000 / 10 = $100

So, despite the other nine leads not closing, each lead is still worth $100. Now it’s your turn. What is your average transaction amount? What is your historical lead-to-close ratio? Some of these numbers might be hard to come by if you’re residing in a data-poor environment. But even a conservative ballpark figure is better than leaving the goal value blank in Google Analytics.

Step 3: Set up your goal in Google Analytics

If you’ve never set up a goal before, the goal set-up function is located on your Profile Settings page, and you’ll need to be an administrator on your account to access it. From your Analytics Settings page, click Edit to edit your desired website profile.

On your Profile Settings page, look for the Goals section in the middle of the page, and click Add Goal to create your first one (or Edit if you’ve previously created a goal).

The Goal Settings page can get a little tricky for non-tech folks, but below are the key items that need to be filled in correctly in order for your conversion goal to be tracked properly:

• Goal Type. If you’re going with the confirmation page scenario, choose URL Destination. Other options are available as well.
• Match Type. Some website URLs are more complex (dynamic) than others, so you need to tell Google Analytics what to look for. Click the little question mark next to that label for instructions. When in doubt, call your local web geek.
• Goal URL. If you still have that URL from Step 1 on your clipboard, click paste. If not, copy the URL from your Thank You / Confirmation page and paste it in the Goal URL field. Delete the actual domain name portion of the URL per the instructions on the right.
• Goal Value. Enter the goal value that you calculated for your specific situation.

With those settings in place, Google Analytics is now going to start tracking both your conversion volume and the average dollar amount to which this equates.

The final piece of this set-up process is to create your goal funnel. If your conversion path is set up to guide visitors through a sequence of pages, you’ll want to set up that step-by-step (or page-by-page) sequence as a funnel so that you can track both the success and failure of your conversion path. The screenshot below shows a typical shopping cart funnel that starts at the View Cart page.

With your sequential funnel set up, now Google Analytics is going to tell you how often people are jumping ship (the abandonment rate) and on which pages they are exiting most. This is very valuable data that should raise some red flags regarding the content on certain pages. You might need to do some testing or make some content tweaks to address the reasons visitors leave on these particular pages.

When you’re done, hit Save.

Step 4: Establish benchmarks, track trends

As I mentioned above, tracking actual dollars through Google Analytics might be fuzzy for some of you, but the important thing is to establish your baselines and start analyzing trends over time. You should be doing regular month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year comparisons, just like your sales manager or CFO. Google Analytics makes it very easy to adjust your date parameters (shown above) and compare past date ranges (shown below).

BONUS! – With your conversion goals and goal values in place, you’re now going to be able to drill down into your traffic sources and see which sources have the best conversion rates and the rough dollar amount that they are generating in sales.

In the screenshot above, we can see that Yahoo and Bing are bringing fewer visitors but more buyers to the site than Google organic or PPC. Hmmm…

Step 5: Close the ROI loop

In setting all this up, my goal is to equip you and your decision-makers with real-time data that will help you make smart, data-backed decisions regarding where and how much budget / resources should be allocated to your website and various online marketing efforts in the future (or to justify what you’re spending now!).

Your homework

Put a date on your calendar every month (or every week) to sit down and review your Google Analytics data. Adjust your date parameters to do a month-over-month comparison and identify opportunities for improvement. Look at your traffic sources and keywords to help guide your social media and content development / SEO efforts. Then go show your boss (or your clients) how your hard work and great content is paying off.

As content marketing grows in importance, more B2C companies are adopting this model. If you are not making content available through an easily reached portal, or if your information is not updated on a regular basis, you may wonder if it is worth the investment of time and resources. But a content portal can really make a difference for your customers, and here’s why:

• It enables customers and prospects to easily find the information they seek.
• It encourages serendipitous discovery of content. When prospects are interested in one product, a portal enables them the opportunity to discover additional content that addresses other questions or concerns they may have.
• It increases the “stickiness” of your website. Customers are likely to stay and browse when visiting a portal that provides important and useful information, and it demonstrates that they can return to find regularly updated content.
• It helps spread your influence. When content is easy to find and interconnected, people are more likely to share your links and recommend your content to their friends and family.

Take a look at three B2C companies that provide content for their customers, some of them using a portal model. They can serve as a guide to understanding the various ways content can be made available and determining what works best. At the end of the post, I’ve shared some suggestions for incorporating the strengths of these sites into your own resource centers.

American Girl

American Girl makes dolls and accessories with the goal of helping young girls grow up wholesomely through play.

The portal for content on this website is Play, designed as an online place for fun, with a little education thrown in.

Pros

• The portal is easy to find in the site’s main top navigation bar, which is available across the site.
• Six sections are named using terminology young girls will recognize and connect with: Girl of the Year, American Girl Magazine, Historical Characters, My American Girl, Advice Library, Activities Library.
• Navigation and organization within each section seems optimized to take advantage of how consumers — young girls and their parents — will search and navigate through the various sections.
• The Play homepage has links to apps (iTunes for iPhone and iPad apps), games, and eCards.
• Emailed eCards link back to the American Girl website, which encourages new prospects to browse.
• American Girl has a Facebook page to encourage sharing via social media for older girls and parents.

Cons

• The Content of Play section is searchable, but the function may not be used frequently because there is not a section-specific search function — searches are conducted via the site search bar above the main navigation bar, which may not be intuitive for this customer demographic.
• Live events and experiences (such as workshops, dining, and parties) are available only from the homepage and Stores sections. Users cannot access these options from the Play section.

New Balance

New Balance is an athletic shoe and apparel company.

There is an opportunity to create a primary portal for content on this website, which would make your consumer education materials more easily accessible. For the time being, the Wellness section serves as the primary portal that new site visitors can use to discover content.

Pros

• The Wellness portal is easy to find from the top navigation bar, which is available across the site.
• Sub-sections are well defined: Fitness, Nutrition, Motivation, and Time.
• There are sidebars on the portal page with options like Featured Content, New and Noteworthy, From the Web, and Related Items.
• Streaming wellness content from the web broadens the amount and types of content available.
• Search results display the search term and number of hits, and results are sortable by general type of content.

Cons

• Useful content is spread across different sections, such as Community, Lifestyle, and Training Tools, rather than being clearly categorized, and this content is not linked.
• New Balance has a presence on Twitter, Facebook, flickr, and YouTube, but it only links to those platforms on the home page, not from the Wellness homepage or other content pages.
• The content is not always fresh. For example, the newest content in each of the Wellness sections — Fitness, Nutrition, Motivation, and Time — was more than one month old when I last surveyed the site, as was the content in the News section.
• The News section is different than the New & Noteworthy streaming content and is not accessible via the homepage or the Wellness section.
• The navigation links to the News and Events sections are well hidden under the main navigation category of Performance.
• Blog content in the Lifestyle section is not marked with a publication date and seems to be updated irregularly.
• The Lifestyle section seems like it should be a home for content; while the home page is, the remainder of the section is devoted primarily to product sales.
• Content in the Wellness and other content sections is searchable, but there is not a section-specific search function, which might limit its accessibility. Site-specific search is available via the search bar above the main navigation bar, but this may not be intuitive for customers.
• Search results are not marked with a date, so customers may not know if they are receiving the most up-to-date information.

Whole Foods Market

Whole Foods Market is a national natural foods supermarket.

The company homepage serves as the content portal for its educational content.

Pros

• Content is easy to find — it greets you from the homepage, with streaming content from their Whole Story blog.
• Links to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr pages, and the company blog are located on the top navigation bar of the home page and throughout the site. Links are also provided in a side navigation bar on the blog.
• The What’s Cooking section provides recipe suggestions, as well as a link to the Recipe section.
• The Health Starts Here section provides nutrition information and healthy eating suggestions, and provides a daily tip and a link to appropriate blog articles.
• There is a section with Videos, as well as a customer Forums section, which is linked directly from the home page — in the bottom navigation section.
• The Whole Story blog is used as a primary repository for much of the site’s information.

Cons

• Three navigation sections — two at the top of the page and one at the bottom — make navigation a bit more difficult, because it’s unclear where visitors should start to look for content.
• Talk to Us, in the top navigation section, links to social media, including the Whole Story blog.
• Blogs and Community, in the bottom navigation section, links to Videos, Forums, the Whole Story blog and two blogs that are not updated regularly.
• The main navigation bar near the top of the page links to Health Starts Here and Recipes.

Each company must decide how best to make information available for its customer. As you can see, each of the above sites does several things quite well, but there is also room for improvement on each.

Key takeaways for B2C resource portals

Users have high expectations for finding content easily. To keep them happy and returning to your website, it is best to make consumer educational content available via a single, easy to find portal. In addition, providing direct, easy to identify connections to and from social media sites will enable customers to share what they learn with friends and family.

Below is a list of tips for a good information portal.

The anchor page

• Display recent and / or streaming content to let customers see what is new and popular without having to wander through pages or do a search.
• Arrange navigation so there is one primary link to the resource portal on every page, so users can find the page from anywhere on the site.

The search function

• Enable searches within the resource portal section, so customers can quickly find educational content that interests them.
• Configure the search function so site visitors can choose between educational and corporate content.

Content to include

• Make all content available, regardless of format, so consumers do not have to concern themselves with knowing if the best results are found on your web pages, documents, blog posts, or videos.
• Make links social media and / or blog content available across the site, or at least on every page of the resource portal section, to ensure a strong connection with other marketing efforts.
• Include links to social media and / or blog content, or the ability to “like” material, to encourage other forms of engagement.

What do you think about resource portals for B2C content? What are features of functions you think are must-haves? What are the nice-to-have features? What are definite no-nos for B2C educational content? Are there any B2C content portals you really love? Let us know in the comments.

• What your visitors have and have not been doing (analytics)
• Why your visitors are taking certain action (visitor behavior indicators).

For information on how to do this, take a look at the series of articles I wrote for CMI on tactics for visitor behavior optimization. Also, Brody Dorland just wrote an excellent article on understanding buyer personas and the paths they take on websites.

Once you are armed with this information, you can take advantage of the following WordPress plugins to help you optimize your content:

Display popular categories on navigation menus

It’s a good idea to discover what categories pique your visitors’ interests at your site. Yoast has an excellent analytics plugin for WordPress which, among other things, allows you to see page views per category. Once you have this information, you can better market that content by adding it to your dropdown menus like this:

Above (click to enlarge), popular categories were first called into position using the WP 3.x drag and drop menu admin, and then they appear in your top navigation.

Include smart internal links

You also want to review your analytics to figure out which search terms people use to arrive at your site and what they search for when on your site. (Note: This requires some setup to track. Some advice from And Break can help get you started). Once you know what these terms are, include relevant links in your posts. For instance, you can link to a related term that has appeared on your site such as Analytics, Visitor Behavior. Note that I have “sculpted” this search return (pulling groups of content into the WordPress search returns by adding a set of keywords separated by a comma) to dynamically pull a set of articles directly related to our topics (both on-site analytics and on-site visitor behavior), then I just copied the resulting link URL.

Reveal buried content

It’s a good idea to surface content that is  timely and relevant as this could be different from what is on your “latest posts” widget. To find which posts to feature, review your analytics to understand what visitors want.

A great plugin for this (developed by my agency, WebFadds.com), is MaxRef Widget(s), which stands for maximum reference to content. You can place this in as many locations as your need, but I suggest including one in the footer area to re-engage visitors who have scrolled to the bottom of a page and are thinking about leaving.

Below, see just one way you can configure the widget to show feature-relevant content:

Above (click to enlarge), we have configured this MaxRef widget to display only certain child pages to market specific content.

Ask for action

In the Brody Dorland post I referenced earlier, he asks us to think about ways to better convert a visitor to a prospect, lead or customer.  One way to move them along the conversion path is to ask them to subscribe to your RSS feed. An excellent plugin, called WP Greet Box, offers editable call-to-action messages you can send to new visitors. I use this on my sites, including  CMI.

Below is the stock message for RSS feed subscriptions, but you can ask for any desired action that matches your business outcome goals (TIP: Always test wording to see what will work best):

Above (click to enlarge) the versatile WP Greetbox plugin allows you to customize calls to action after recognizing visitors who are entering your site from any one of a number of social venues.

Attend to social signals

Currently, search engines are paying particular attention to “social signals”, meaning how many people like, tweet, and otherwise link to your content in social venues. There is a great plugin that fosters the “big five,”  Twitter tweets, Facebook “likes”, Google+, LinkedIn comments, and StumbleUpon postings. Note that I included StumbleUpon because the plugin automatically adds it, and Mashable recently noted that StumbleUpon drives more than 50 percent of social media traffic over time (think link building).

Called TF Social Share, the plugin provides extra placement and styling options, including a floating box that stays in place at the side of posts when you scroll:

Above (click to enlarge) you can see the excellent options featured in this plugin to help you market your content in social venues

I made a recent video on Content Marketing plugins that explains more about some that are mentioned in this article:

I’m sure some of you will have other favorites, so I look forward to reading about WordPress plugins that help you with your content marketing tactics. Let me know in the comments.