How to Make Thought Leadership Content Work for Your Business

Why is thought leadership content so valuable?

Because it can:

But creating thought leadership content that makes an impact isn’t easy, or every company would be considered an authority in its sector.

So, how can you make thought leadership content work for you?

Our Orange County SEO specialists have the answers …

 

Support Points with Original Research and Data

Conducting your own research is one of the most effective ways to help your thought leadership content stand out. This might be as simple as creating a poll on social media or as complicated as surveying industry experts around the world.

Regardless of its scale, original research provides readers with insights they can’t find anywhere else and ensures your content is unique. You offer more value than a competitor regurgitating others’ data, and establish your site or business as a useful resource.

 

Create Gated Thought Leadership Content to Generate Leads

Most of your thought leadership content might appear on your business’s blog or other websites e.g. industry news publications. But you can create longer pieces as gated content to capture leads.

For example, a free 40-page ebook packed with unique, actionable insights can inspire visitors to submit their email address more than the promise of a monthly newsletter.

Newcomers can check your existing content before deciding whether to sign up or not, and you can incentivize them further with a small discount or free trial.

 

Look at Competing Thought Leaders (and Do Better)

One simple step in creating thought leadership content is to explore your competitors’ output. What blog posts, articles, whitepapers, and even books are they publishing? How do they promote it? Do they use special offers to attract interest?

But remember: your content must be unique. So, be inspired by competitors but focus on establishing a distinctive presence.

 

Make Content Relevant to Industry Changes, Product Releases, and Events

Good content is relevant. Not just to your audience, but to industry changes and events.

That’s why it’s important to create a content calendar and schedule pieces to make the biggest impact. For example, if your business is attending an expo in two months, start gathering material for a deep post as soon as you can.

This might document the creation of a product you plan to reveal or explore said product’s expected market impact.

Whatever the topic, the content can generate interest in the product and vice versa. And both can bring curious new visitors to your site.

 

Thought leadership is a fantastic addition to a content marketing strategy and helps drive traffic. But what else can you do to attract more visitors, build authority, and boost engagement?

Our Orange County SEO experts are here to help. Just get in touch for your FREE Relevancy & Quality Score Report now!

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How can Your Business Build Brand Awareness with Content Marketing?

Building brand awareness can be tough for small businesses, but an effective content marketing strategy makes it a little easier.

And in this post, we explore four great options that any company can try.

 

Write Guest Posts

Guest posts can introduce your brand to an existing audience, help your business earn more credibility, and demonstrate thought leadership.

But your guest posts have to be valuable and relevant to the site’s audience to be effective. Apparently, 79 percent of editors feel content written by guests is “too promotional”, and if yours falls into that category, it might not be published at all.

Take the time to find blogs related to your industry, products, or services, and look at the level of social shares their posts achieve. Sites accepting guest posts tend to offer detailed submission requirements and guidelines, so read these carefully before pitching.

 

Launch a Podcast

Podcasts are everywhere. More than half of the United States’ population has listened to at least one, and there are more than 550,000 active shows out there. And people who listen to podcasts are more likely to follow businesses on social media, too, which means you could gain another valuable touchpoint.

So, why not create your own show?

This gives you a chance to become a thought leader and present your business’s human side. Find out if any of your competitors run a podcast and make sure your ideas don’t overlap with theirs. Try to recognize what makes your favorite shows work, too.

Perhaps record a few practice episodes before releasing your first. This lets your host(s) get used to the process, establish a voice, and build a format without feeling under pressure to be entertaining from the start.

 

Take Advantage of Email Marketing and Newsletters

Email marketing is around 40 times more effective at helping companies acquire new customers than Twitter and Facebook.

You can capture visitors’ email addresses by offering gated content on your website, such as an ebook, whitepaper, or maybe even a podcast. The content has to offer real value to prospects, though. They’re pretty unlikely to submit their email address for information or advice they could find somewhere else.

Marketing emails and newsletters should be tailored to subscribers, with content that’s relevant to their interests or buying history. Personalize subject lines to include recipient names, as this can take open rates from 15 percent to more than 18 percent.

 

Share Content Across Social Media (Even if it’s Not Your Own)

Every piece of content your business generates should be shared across all of your social channels, not just Facebook. Encourage followers to comment with their opinions, suggest ideas for future content, and share posts with friends who might find them interesting.

Interact with followers who comment and show that you value their insights. And don’t be afraid to share content from high-authority blogs or sites, as long as it’s not written by a competitor.

 

An effective content marketing strategy will help build brand awareness and bring your business to a wider audience. Follow these tips to start making an impact.

Want help from a professional digital marketing team? Our Orange County Marketing experts can help you increase your company’s visibility and engagement with a tailored strategy. Get in touch for your free marketing analysis today.

 

 

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Content Marketing Tips for Small Businesses – The Right Way to Reach Your Audience

A well-planned content marketing strategy is a crucial asset for any small business, though it’s not easy. You might find yourself sweating at the prospect of having to write blog posts three times a week or putting together a comprehensive whitepaper. but the truth is, all the hard work can really pay off.

Just ask those small businesses posting blogs on a regular basis and earning 126 percent more lead growth than those that don’t have a blog.

So, to help you get more out of your content marketing, we’ve put together the following tips.

 

Know Who You’re Writing For

One of the most important steps in building a good content marketing strategy is understanding your audience. If you try to write for everyone, the results could be vague and, most likely, interesting to no one.

But when you focus your aim and write for a specific segment, you can inject more truth and power into your content.

Think about your current customer base, your competition, and the pain points your business addresses. This helps clarify your ideal reader and the action you want them to take.

 

A Content Calendar is Key to Success

It might be tempting to create content as and when the mood takes you. Especially when your small business is operated by a skeleton crew with little spare time to flex their creative muscles.

But implementing a content calendar establishes a tighter focus and boosts relevance. For example, generating ideas for Christmas-themed content weeks in advance gives you the time to think carefully about the sort of answers your audience will be looking to solve in the run up to the season.

Planning themes and topics early reduces time wasted scrabbling for ideas on the day a blog post is due, too.

 

Use Long-form Content to Achieve Better Results

Research shows long-form content brings stronger results, with articles of more than 2000 words performing well for around 56 percent of creators.

That’s not to say you should never publish short posts, such as news updates, insights into forthcoming products, or simple articles offering a quick read.

Just make sure to publish long-form content that demonstrates thought leadership and gives readers something they can sink their teeth into regularly.

 

Experiment with Visual Content

Images help users process information and grasp the core topics or themes of a piece of content before they even start reading. Posts including images generate 650 percent higher engagement and earn three times as many links as text-only ones.

Try publishing infographics and videos on a regular basis, but spend time and money getting them to a professional standard first. When using images in your content, use original photos or graphics as often as you can. Only rely on stock visuals when you have no other option.

These content marketing tips can help small businesses build more effective campaigns and reach the right people. But it can be difficult to implement a strict plan when you have a company to run and a team to manage.

Want to work with a professional Orange County SEO agency committed to achieve real results instead? Just get in touch for a free marketing analysis now.

 

 

 

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Social Media Marketing in Orange County

How to Get Social Media Marketing Right for Your Business

Social media marketing is a must for every business. Big or small. New or established.

Why?

So, we know social media marketing has big potential to get your brand and products in front of a huge audience.

But how can you get it right?

 

Know Who Your Audience is and What they Care About

When you know your target audience, their interests, their values, and their buying habits, you can narrow your marketing’s focus.

For example, let’s say you want to target millennials. You’re in luck: more than 90 percent of them use social media, compared to just 48 percent of baby boomers.

That means you have a high chance of reaching your ideal customer base through effective social media marketing. You need to:

  • Gather information on your existing customers (age, location, spending habits, purchase preferences)
  • Look at your competitors’ social media marketing: what techniques do they use to reach your shared audience?
  • Survey customers to discover which social networks they use, which days and times they tend to browse, etc.
  • Create buyer personas for different demographics within your audience

The more you know about your ideal customers, the more effective your marketing should be.

 

Focus on Engagement, Not Just Selling

It’s tempting to promote your products or services on social media shamelessly. But this is likely to bore and frustrate your followers.

Work on engaging your audience through relevant, valuable content. Use images, videos, concise text, and more to keep your posts diverse.

Another key element of engagement is interacting with followers, responding to comments on posts, and more. Be transparent and accessible. Build relationships with the potential to translate into conversions down the line.

 

A/B Testing is Your Friend

A/B testing (or split testing) is a simple but effective way to determine the best ads and content for your social media marketing campaign.

Create two versions of ads or posts, incorporating different images, language, video lengths, GIFs, and more. Run them both at the same time, split between your audience equally, for a fixed period.

Analytics will reveal which version secures the highest engagement. You may or may not keep it as is, or build a new variation implementing the strongest features of the most successful one.

 

Stay Consistent

Establish a voice and stick to it.

That’s not to say you can’t evolve over time and embrace a slightly different tone. But it does mean it’s best to stay consistent across posts and social networks.

So, if you use punchy language and humorous GIFs on Twitter, don’t be painfully dry on Facebook.

This can disorient your audience, and suggest your team behind the scenes is unprofessional or disorganized. Consistency helps your brand develop a recognizable personality, build trust, and ensure followers know what to expect during interactions.

 

Social media marketing isn’t easy, but it’s worth putting time into developing a sound strategy that suits your business goals, audience, and budget.

Focus on building brand awareness, gaining trust, and establishing a consistent voice to maximize your campaign’s performance. Want help from a seasoned Orange County SEO team? We’ve got a free marketing analysis with your name on it!

 

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Google Responsive Ads

What are Google’s New Responsive Search Ads?

Google has announced a new ad product based on machine learning, which adapts to users’ search queries for more accurate results.

In these new responsive search ads, businesses can provide up to 15 headlines and four lines of description. Once these are submitted, Google will perform tests to learn which ads offer the strongest performance for different queries.

Google claims that incorporating machine learning into testing multiple combinations has the power to increase an ad’s clicks by as much as 15 percent.

However, the new responsive search ads do more than this: they open the door for advertisers to take part in additional auctions and provide matches for more searches. As a result, companies using Google AdWords will be able to reach a wider audience.

 

More space for bigger descriptions

Advertisers will have a little more space to play with, as descriptions can contain as many as 90 characters rather than just 80. Each responsive search ad may display up to three different headlines instead of only two. Two descriptions can also appear.

This is a fantastic addition to the Google AdWords platform. Businesses of all sizes and across all industries will benefit from experimenting with Google’s new responsive search ads.

With additional space for your description fields and as many as 15 headlines, your PPC ad copy gives Google plenty of potential combinations to try.

After all, the aim of PPC is to help advertisers reach potential buyers through the most relevant, engaging ads. The new responsive search ads should help companies to match more queries, increasing your chances to boost conversions.

Google’s responsive search ads are in beta at present and being provided to a limited group of AdWords clients.

 

Intelligent testing for successful campaigns

Being able to essentially let Google’s machine learning to test multiple combinations and decide on the most effective takes some of the strain off. A/B testing is an essential part of cultivating a successful PPC campaign, but now Google will take the initiative.

Of course, you still have to put real effort and consideration into creating the various headlines and descriptions you submit. The stronger the ideas you provide to Google, the better the combinations are likely to be.

It is vital to spend time looking into the best keywords, headlines and tone to grab your target audience. Keep in mind that Google’s responsive search ads can only work with what you deliver.

This is another exciting step in Google’s ongoing advances in online advertising. We look forward to seeing where they go next.

Are you looking to launch your own PPC campaign, or get better results with your current one? Give our Orange County digital marketing agency a call to learn more!

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Nett Solutions Blog - Target

Top SEO Tips for Niche Companies

 Are you operating in a niche market?

If you are, then you’ll know marketing a smaller company can be incredibly difficult. However, an effective, well-structured SEO campaign can help you promote your company properly and grow your customer base significantly.

If you’re looking to expand your niche business’s reach in an organic way, read on for some top SEO tips.

 

Engage your customers to build brand loyalty

You need to make engaging your customers and prospects a priority from day one. Your digital marketing campaign should include social media marketing (SMM), incorporating both paid ads and regular posts.

Make a real effort to engage users, whether they’re current followers or not. Visual content is critical to grab attention on social media, so use images and videos throughout your posts.

The more eye-catching and clear to understand your marketing materials are, the more likely people are to share them. Brand posts with images have been shown to achieve more interactions than those without.

Never bombard users with a slew of promotional posts. Focus on captivating rather than selling, selling, selling.

Visual content is obviously just as important on your website. Keep your text brief and to the point, but make sure your blogs, product pages, and more are rich with visuals too. Short videos introducing your brand and your team can convey background information in a much more accessible way than expecting a visitor to read blocks of text.

 

Check out your competition

Even in niche businesses, you’ll face some competition. Unless you’ve created a product or service that nobody else on the planet has, you should be able to research what rival companies are doing to expand their reach.

What are they doing on social media? How are their blog posts distributed and what traction do they get?

Take the time to look at the competition ahead of you and behind you. See what to do and what not to do in your own SEO campaign.

 

Make friends in high places

One particularly effective SEO technique for niche businesses is to make connections with useful websites.

For example, if your business specializes in creating accessories for games consoles, consider trying to forge links with a high-profile blog focused on games. Can you get them to review some of your products, whether this is in blog posts or videos on YouTube? Are you able to make an impact with their audience?

However, only choose blogs or sites that aren’t in direct competition with you or already linked to other rivals of yours. Do your research first.

At Nett Solutions, our Orange County SEO team can help your niche business expand your reach and build a bigger reputation. Give us a call to discuss your options now!

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Google & Tiffany’s… two peas in a pod

Some things in life are best left simple and pure.  According to my wife, some examples are: Tiffany’s blue, a simple black cocktail dress, a kiss goodnight, her favorite pair of jeans, a baby sleeping and a classic Chanel handbag.  Yes, she used the “handbag” card one week before Valentine’s day… and no, I don’t plan on buying her one.  My list of things that are beautiful in their simplicity?  USC Football jerseys (apologies to my UCLA co-workers), cheeseburgers, ‘65 Shelby fastback Mustang, backyard BBQ’s and that 15 year-old, hole-ridden, one-size-too-small,  favorite t-shirt that the wife always tries to throw away.

All these things reveal beauty in their classic, timeless, simple states. A major contributing factor in Google’s rise to dominance has been their ability to grasp the fact that people can indeed find beauty in simplicity.  It is widely believed that the average American is targeted by over 3000 ads and exposed to hundreds of them on a daily basis.  Ad space dominates our surroundings and it is no different in the online realm.   In a cyberworld cluttered with advertisements and widgets, Google continues to exercise its motto to “think backwards” by displaying beauty in simplicity.  I noticed a recent change in the Google search page.  Traditionally, the page would look something like this:

 

Google simplified things even further by removing all the peripheral links to reveal a pure, clean, simple search page:

 

The peripheral links in the image above don’t appear until you take action by moving the mouse over the page.  You can call it the anti-AOL or the contra-Yahoo!.  I simply call it beautiful.  Note that I am speaking purely from a search perspective.  A company like Yahoo! finds its strength in their network/portal.  When it comes to search, Google continues to deliver by sticking to one of their 10 philosophical pillars:  “It’s best to do one thing really, really well.”  That one thing is Search and the newest change to the homepage embodies this philosophy.

We often speak to e-commerce businesses who try to jazz up their site with way too much text, animation, dizzying color patterns, or overwhelming ads.  It should be well noted that potential customers and site visitors want to find the info they are searching for quickly and easily.  Simple, clean pages do wonders for website conversions, visitor satisfaction, and bounce rates.  The next time you give your site a facelift, I encourage you to take a lesson from Google and consider the ‘less is more’ approach.   You can always give us a call so we can discuss strategies for your website.

While we’re on the subject of Google ads, I hope you were able to catch the Parisian Love Super Bowl ad this past weekend.  I tend to judge Super Bowl commercials by watching faces of the viewers around me rather than how I personally react.  I noticed the faces of the viewers at the Super Bowl party were absolutely intrigued by this commercial and actually enjoyed watching it.  There was no humor, celebrity spokesman, or special effects.  It was simple yet captivating… how fitting of Google. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYavikKP8wI

On a personal note, this commercial is the one that got my vote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rsEnwKrsvc

  • Michael

Nett Solutions is a SEM agency working with Yahoo! and Google.  We are a SoCal based company built of an eclectic cornucopia of:  marketers, mothers & fathers, husbands & wives, college grads & MBA’s, surfers, church-goers, athletes, comedians (and those who think they are comedians).  Our common bond is that we like to help people succeed.

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It’s a new year with new mountains to climb.

This is a fun and interesting time to begin a new blog series.  The first two months of the calendar year always excites me because its earnings season, the aggregate holiday sales numbers are posted, the Super Bowl ads are creating buzz, many New Year’s resolutions broken by now, and the New Year generally marks a fresh start for everyone.    This new blog is designed to address current events in a way that is informative and applicable to small & medium sized businesses.    

As an internet marketing company we feel a high level of responsibility towards not just creating a good ad campaign, but also helping our clients succeed in their day to day business operations.  We have the opportunity to speak with 100’s of new SMB’s every week.  This allows us the ability to keep a finger on the pulse of the American business environment and offer fun & interesting blog topics that pertain to all aspects of the business.  I understand words like inflation, recession, and unemployment raise barriers when making business decisions.  I am faced with these similar decisions on a daily basis.  At the same time we believe there is opportunity all around us.  Our goal is to help businesses continue to grow during these challenging times. 

On a personal note, I believe in people.   I believe the small and medium sized American businesses must spearhead the charge out of this recession.  I believe American’s may not have greater dreams that those in other countries… but I believe we live in a country that provides the best platform to achieve those dreams.   Our passion is to use advertising and marketing to make dreams happen.

  • – Michael Won

Nett Solutions is an SEM working with Yahoo! and Google.  We are a SoCal based company built of an eclectic cornucopia of:  marketers, mothers & fathers, husbands & wives, college grads & MBA’s, surfers, church-goers, athletes, comedians (and those who think they are comedians).  Our common bond is that we like to help people succeed.

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Why Choose Nett Solutions over other Search Engine Marketing Solutions?

Search Engine Marketing has a wide array of choices to get you noticed, however no other solution can guarantee position AND cost.  Having such a simple, straightforward solution means you can get back to your real business and not worry where and when your ad is showing up!

What can you expect with NettSolutions?

  • Positioning in 1st , 2nd or 3rd Sponsored Placements 24/7
  • 12 Month Rate Guarantee
  • Month-to-Month Contract – 3 month minimum
  • First Right for Placement Renewal
  • Custom Descriptions – With the ability to change these
  • Unlimited Clicks
  • No Need for Costly & Complex Management
  • Positioning where the vast majority of Clicks Occur
  • Monthly Billing
  • Ability to upgrade package at any time
  • Exceptional Service – Always.


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The Nett Solutions Difference

Search Engine Placement (SEP) is a relatively new approach to Search Engine Marketing, which is why many companies immediately confuse it with other options such as Paid for Placement and Search Engine Optimization.

Nett Solutions was among the first companies to work with the top Search Engines to offer Guaranteed Fixed Placement as an option back in 2003, and continues to be one of just a handful of SEP providers today.

Nett Solutions employs high level search professionals and offers continuous training with an emphasis on effective strategies for your business. Our goal is to not just get you traffic, but to make sure that traffic is targeted so you can achieve outstanding results.

With guaranteed placement in one of the top 3 sponsored positions, you no longer need to worry about bidding for placement, or being moved out of your position. With unlimited click-throughs and a flat rate pricing model you also do not need to worry about fluctuating costs, making the budgeting process much easier. Now you can relax and get back to your real business, knowing that your placement is assured.

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