Farm credits

Demand Media has filed for an IPO. The company, known as a content farm to some, produces much of its content on sites like eHow and others in direct response to what it determines people are searching for on the web. Its filing shed new light on how much it depends on SEO and Google, in particular. That’s interesting, because I’ve never known a company — a publisher — so dependent on SEO (outside of actual SEO companies) to go public before. Below, highlights on these aspects. The SEO and Google aspects really get going around page 14 of the filing: Page 14: Google Funds Big Chunk Of Demand Media We have an extensive relationship with Google and a significant portion of our revenue is derived from cost-per-click performance-based advertising provided by Google. For the year ended December 31, 2009 and the six months ended June 30, 2010, we derived approximately 18% and 26%, respectively, of our total revenue from our various advertising arrangements with … [Read more...] about The Google & SEO Aspects

Here’s a general question for you. What lasts, in our world? What really and truly stands the test of time, avoiding the cosmic laws of entropy and decay? It sure isn’t capacitive touch screens in a home with toddlers; I’ll tell you that. Stories endure. Guy meets girl, a man out-of-place, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return; love conquers all – these are lasting tales that have been told since mankind knew how to tell them. “Once upon a time…” “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” “RAGE. Sing, Goddess, Achilles’ rage…” “Hello. My name’s Forrest. Forrest Gump. Do you want a chocolate?” Stories are immortal. Why Storytelling? Why do we tell stories? American literary scholar Jonathan Gottschall says it’s because we can’t help it. We have to turn things that aren’t stories into … [Read more...] about Why Marketing Revolves Around Storytelling

There is an enormous difference between creating impact and creating buzz. Ultimately, measuring the effect of content marketing is dependent on the purpose, and – fortunately for us marketers – there are enough metrics for whichever objectives we are aiming for. Although content effectiveness isn’t as easily tracked as PPC, the path of writing should be guided by some rules of thumb and there are certain goals every content marketer needs to have. For instance, SlideShare is a great platform for repurposing content. It helps doubling – sometimes tripling – the initial results of a piece of content and helps reach another type of audience. Keeping a balance between these kinds of metrics can be easily done, provided you don’t create content aimlessly, but as part of a long-term strategy, with tactical steps and SMART objectives. This article will go through the types of content marketing metrics that can help you in terms of consolidating your … [Read more...] about Content Marketing Metrics You Need to Measure

Anyone involved with online marketing and SEO already knows link building can be a dangerous game to play. For starters, you have to keep up-to-update to Google’s algorithmic changes and play by Google’s ever-changing Webmaster Guidelines. You also have to make sure you’re getting links from high-quality sites – and not those spammy, black-hat locations. Despite these challenges, link building works. According to a study conducted by Moz—which examined the top 50 Google search results for approximately 15,000 keywords—99.2% of the top 50 sites had at least one external website pointing to it. The study also discovered that more links correlate with higher rankings and the chances of ranking for anything competitive is rare without links. While it is possible to rank without links, Moz warns “if you’re looking for a site that ranks well with no external links, be prepared to look for a very long time.” So, how can you safely build … [Read more...] about 11 Ways to Build Links Through Content Marketing

If at one point you’ve bought links, hired an SEO agency, or received a sudden decrease in website traffic, then this blog post is for you. Even if you don’t have a penalty at this time, you’ll want to review the inbound links coming into your site. It’s always better to be proactive because by the time you realize you have a penalty it’s too late. This is the 2015 process for removing a penalty and analyzing potentially hazardous links. Tools Needed: Step 1: Gather Information Start by pulling the freshest download of your sites total links from Google Webmaster Tools. Click on Search Traffic > Links to Your Site > Who links the most – More > Download Latest Links > Export to Google Docs Once the links are exported into a Google doc I recommend pairing this data with a third-party tool such as Chris Cemper’s Link Research Tools (LRT). Depending on the number of links, this tool will give you more bandwidth to tackle the brunt of … [Read more...] about A 2015 Process To Removing a Google Link Penalty