Content Crush Nov. 17: SEO Strategies and the Revenge of the Creatives

A roundup of this week’s best content marketing content for content marketers. 

1. Discover Hidden Backlink Opportunities

This post from the Portent blog is a great how-to resource for discovering great backlink building or co-marketing opportunities hidden in your Google Analytics

You should know the channels that drive tons of leads…While that’s great information, your boss will probably also know what’s obviously working. What we want are traffic sources that are unsung heroes in your marketing mix.

See Also: Content Marketing Moneyball: The Secret Strategy to Data-Driven Content Success

2. Content Gap Analysis

Before you finalize your 2018 content plan, it’s crucial to do a content gap analysis first according to a recent post on Search Engine Journal. (Plus, we think our Content Marketing Platform is pretty handy tool for helping you do just that.)

It doesn’t matter how many visitors you drive to your website if you don’t have the right content and user experience in place to optimize for conversion. This is why it’s essential to not only conduct a website gap analysis but a full content audit.

See Also: How to Conduct a Content Audit

3. Podcasting’s ‘Super Listeners’

This post from the Knight Foundation could be a masterclass in persona research. The most engaged podcast listeners prefer their content to be asynchronous, mobile, and niche. And they’ll also tell you about it—super listeners are big boosters of the podcasts they love.

This active audience is incredibly mobile: 93% say they listen to podcasts via smartphone, with 84% indicating that is their primary means of listening to podcasts.

See Also: A Content Marketer’s Guide to Podcasting

4. Audience-Centric Content Strategy

The folks over at Moz recommend creating a content strategy that starts with customer pain points and your unique value proposition and then layers a keyword strategy over that framework

Moving away from a keyword-first-driven content strategy and into an audience-centric one will put you in a better place for creating SEO content that converts. Don’t get me wrong — there’s still an important place for keyword research. But it belongs later in the process, after you’ve performed a deep dive into your audience and your own brand expertise.

See Also: SEO Survival Guide

5. It’s Time for Creative to Retake Center Stage

This post from Marketing Land is specific to the advertising industry but has learnings for us content marketers as well. In a sea of digital noise, focus on creating highly relevant, highly useful experiences that are a pleasure for your audience. More isn’t necessarily better; better is better.

But somewhere along the line, the problem of how to distribute the message became more important than the message itself. Creative now takes a back seat to the media plan.

See Also: The Two Best Secrets to Writing Brain-Craving Content