Preface

At a large search marketing conference several years ago, I had a conversation with Maile Ohye from Google about public speaking, noting how impressive she was. As an active public speaker myself, I shared with her how I was able to get by with good information and enthusiasm, but without much polish. What she said next hit me like a ton of bricks: “You’re an SEO and you optimize websites for better performance in search engines, right?” To which I replied yes. Her follow-up was, “Then why don’t you optimize your speaking skills?”

Have you ever watched a movie where the camera is tight on a scene and, for dramatic effect, it pulls back in a blur? That’s what I was feeling when Maile made her simple, yet powerful recommendation. What hit me wasn’t just that I should work on my speaking skills, but the broader notion of optimization and how it applies to a persistent effort at improving just about anything for better performance.

ADAPT OR DIE

Reading this book is a great first step toward a new way of thinking about how you can apply optimization principles to your business. The sheer volume of content created each day, coupled with the explosive growth of social media accessed on the Internet and on mobile and tablet devices, can be overwhelming. I’ve spent an incredible amount of time testing and making sense of the search and social web. My hope is that you’ll find this book a quick study on the big-picture topics and deep on the practical resources for planning, implementing, and scaling a socialized and optimized content marketing strategy.

Millions of websites, with billions of pages and media, are indexed by search engines. Google alone handles more than 1 billion searches each day. A large number of the companies publishing information online that expect traffic from search engines have difficulty creating great content, let alone producing compelling content on a regular basis. Even companies that do create high-quality content often neglect how search engine optimization and social media marketing can expedite engagement between buyers and what the brand has to offer.

There’s nothing static about Internet marketing, but the one constant we can all count on is the persistent effort by search engines to improve search quality and user experience. Such continuous improvements can affect how content is discovered, indexed, and sorted in search results as well as what external signals are considered to determine authority. Companies that ignore the current state of affairs with search technology and quality guidelines may feel the sting, as many website owners did with Google’s Panda updates in 2011.

In addition to monitoring search engines, it’s essential for results oriented Internet marketing and communications professionals to understand the online information discovery, consumption, and engagement preferences of the people they’re trying to reach. A better grasp of how customers find and seek out resources, the content topics and formats that motivate them, and the social media platforms and tools they use to engage and recommend things can be incredibly powerful for successful Internet marketing programs. Putting those insights into action means developing a proactive, adaptive, and integrated approach to content, search engine optimization, and social media marketing. Those companies that have adapted, such as Dell, Intel, and Zappos, have thrived. Businesses that have ignored the transformation of consumer trends and web technology have not fared so well.

OPTIMIZED STATE OF MIND

Many companies treat their Internet marketing the same way I was treating my presentation skills. They get by with checklist SEO tactics, disconnected and difficult-to-measure social media marketing. On top of that, there’s the challenge of creating high-quality content on a regular basis over a long period of time. If a company doesn’t see the bigger-picture synergy of how to break social media, content, and SEO efforts out of departmental silos and approach Internet marketing and public relations holistically, how can they grow and remain competitive? To me, the notion of optimization is more about brands and customers than it is about keywords and rankings on search engines. Being “optimized” is a state of mind, and with this book, I hope to convert you into becoming more optimized in your marketing and communications.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past 14-plus years of working in the Internet marketing industry is the uncanny ability that high-performing SEO professionals have to use out-of-the-box creative, analytical, and lateral thinking to proactively solve marketing problems and find competitive advantages. At the same time, my work in the public relations field has shown me how messaging, influence, and engagement sync perfectly to help brands become the most relevant solution for their category, whether it’s through search, social media, or other forms of online communications. The notion of search optimization might have a strong history with keywords, links, and pages in search engines, but an “optimize” mentality is a way of thinking that can give organizations like yours a competitive advantage in any area of a business that creates content online, from marketing and PR to customer service and human resources.

In that context, I encourage you to ask the same kinds of questions I pondered in my discussion with Maile, “Are your SEO, social media, and content marketing efforts optimized to work together? Are your marketing and communications optimized for specific audiences and outcomes?”

THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU

This book is for the marketers, public relations professionals, small- to medium-sized business owners, and large company marketing executives who want to understand and implement a road map that incorporates the synergies of content, social media, and search engine optimization. In the three phases of this book, we build a crystal clear picture of how to plan, execute, and scale an integrated approach to social media optimization and content marketing.

What This Book Will Teach You

• Phase 1 guides you in understanding the changing nature of consumer preferences and behaviors with search, social media, and content, as well as what that means for your online marketing strategy.
• Phase 2 explores optimized content marketing tactics from developing personas to social networking to content planning and measurement. We dig into key insights and examples of holistic search engine optimization for more effective search and social media marketing.
• Phase 3 is about scale and discusses processes and training you’ll need to grow and maintain an integrated social media, SEO, and content marketing program in your organization.

Are you ready to get optimized? Let’s get started.