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5 blog topic ideas for your eCommerce site

Marieke van de Rakt

Marieke van de Rakt is the founder of Yoast SEO Company Academy and CEO of Yoast. Her favorite SEO Company topics are SEO Company copywriting and site structure.

A blog can be a great marketing agency tool for your eCommerce site. It gives you the possibility to tell readers all about your brand, products, and company. Plus, by blogging on a regular basis you’ll increase the chances of your site ranking in the search results. That being said, coming up with new ideas can be difficult. In this post, I’ll discuss 5 topic ideas that will help you maintain an awesome blog on your eCommerce site!

Want to start writing, but not quite sure how to write copy that users and search engines will love? Our practical and complete SEO copywriting training is what you need! This training is part of our Content SEO training subscriptions.

So, why should you blog?

It might seem like a lot of work, but maintaining a blog on your eCommerce site is definitely worth your time. A blog allows your audience to learn more about your brand and products. You’ll be able to tell the story of your brand and products from your own perspective and inform your audience about new ideas or plans you might have. This builds trust between you and your audience and increases their engagement.

But that’s not all! Maintaining a blot contributes to SEO Company as well. Every time you publish a new blog post to your eCommerce site, you’re adding fresh content. Which Google loves. You can use these blog posts to answer questions your potential customers have (and for which your products offer a solution). Or use them to show your expertise on topics that are related to your business. By blogging regularly and using the right keywords, your blog will help increase the overall rankings of your eCommerce site. Including your product pages.

Read more: The ultimate guide to blogging »

5 blog ideas for eCommerce sites

So, a blog can help your audience find you online. But maintaining it can be hard. You’ll have to keep coming up with new and unique ideas for your eCommerce blog. Above that, you’ll want to create awesome content to make sure that your audience keeps returning to your site. So, let’s start with a first and quite essential step in creating and maintaining your eCommerce blog: keyword research.

1. Input from keyword research

You can write about whatever you want on your blog, but before you start, it’s important to do proper keyword research. Keyword research will help you understand which search terms your audience uses, and therefore which search terms you want to be found on. You might have an idea of the search terms you want your site or products to be found on, but make sure to research them to make sure you’re using the right ones. Who knows, your audience might use a totally different word for a product you offer, and this can mean that you’re missing out on potential customers by focusing on the wrong search term!

You can Google the keyword you came up with to check the searches Google suggests (while you’re typing). Or use tools such as Google Trends to research how often your search term is used compared to similar terms. But keyword research is so much more. And if you spend the time to do it properly, this will pay off by providing you with a list of focus keywords that will help you rank for the right search terms.

Keep reading: Keyword research: the ultimate guide »

2. Current events and news

A great way to come up with new topic ideas for your eCommerce blog is by following current events and writing about them. Keep an eye on different news sites and write posts in which you give your view or expertise on news in your niche. To make sure you don’t miss anything, you can even set up alerts for specific topics. And if a holiday or event is coming up, write a post about how your products could be used during that holiday or event.

Current events give you input on topics to write about, and the fun part is that you’re writing about something people are interested in at that moment. Because it’s happening now. And if it’s an important event in your niche (or in general), that means that your audience will be probably want to read more about this topic.

To give an example of how we do this at Yoast, a while ago Google announced Web Vitals – a new set of metrics to measure speed and user experience of websites. And because we know our readers will want to know more about this, as they are often concerned with optimizing their site, we’ve already written different blog posts explaining what these Web Vitals are and what impact they can have on sites.

3. Audience questions or comments

It might seem a bit scary at first, but giving readers the possibility to leave comments on your blog is a great way to get input for new posts. Inviting people to leave comments on your blog, means you will probably receive feedback and questions. Which you can use to determine what subjects your audience wants to know more about and what you can write your new blog post on.

Also, this interaction is a great way to connect to people and make sure they’ll come back to your site. If you’re still a bit hesitant about allowing comments on your blog, we have a post that will help you handle comments on your blog.

4. Blogs with a personal touch

Writing blog posts allows you to add a personal touch to your site, and with it your brand and company. Even a large company or brand can really benefit from a blog that appeals to people on a personal level. One way to do this is by showing the authors of your blog. Let your readers get to know the people who write your blog posts and their expertise. And if it’s possible, let your CEO (or experts in your team) write about their own view on the market or the ways they use the products your company sells. By giving your blogs a personal touch, you’re giving the company and your brand a face that people can relate to. That helps people connect to your company and might even convince them to return to your online shop.

If you’re having trouble standing out in a sea of similar eCommerce blogs, this article about staying unique in a competitive niche might help you find your tone of voice. Which will make it much easier to add this personal touch to your blog posts and connect to your audience.

5. Stories about your products

Your product page might be the perfect place to describe your product, but your blog is a perfect place to share stories about your product. If you sell cleaning supplies, write blogs about which stains are best removed with which one of your products. If you sell kids clothes, write blog posts about children playing while wearing your clothes. And don’t underestimate the importance of photos, so make sure to add lots of them! If you don’t have any, try to add images that are related to your business or brand to liven up your posts.

Tell stories about the different ways people can use your products and make these stories informative and entertaining. Don’t make these blogs too salesy. Show people why they should buy your stuff instead of telling them they should buy it.

Another great way to do this is by asking your customers to share their stories. Ask them about their experiences with your products and if they have photos you’re allowed to share on your site. With the permission of these customers, you can write beautiful blog posts based on their experiences. Or you could ask your clients if they would want to write a guest blog.

Read on: How to use storytelling in a blog post »

Let’s get blogging!

As I said in the introduction of this post, a blog can be a great marketing agency tool for any eCommerce site. And should, therefore, be part of your eCommerce SEO strategy. It will allow you to get more people to your site, increase their engagement, and present your brand and company the way you want to be seen. But blogging takes time. I hope these 5 blog ideas for eCommerce sites will provide you with enough input to start and maintain an awesome blog!

Keep on reading: 5 tips to write readable blog posts »

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Search engines penalize websites but why?

There’s hardly another constant hot-button issue as intensely debated within the search industry as search engine penalties. Leading SEO Company outlets maintain their coverage of that touchy subject from a uniform angle, reinforcing the subjective view that seemingly all but a few websites are penalized. Yet despite this ongoing barrage of information, it seems that more misconceptions are being disseminated than certainties. Consequently the situation only amplifies unwarranted fears among website operators. This opinion piece, strongly influenced by the author’s personal experience while working for Google Search including penalizing websites, is an attempt to clarify why and how leading search engines approach penalization. The focus here is on key search market players. The article does not aspire to provide a comprehensive overview including all search alternatives, such as DuckDuckGo or Ecosia. While they all contribute a valiant effort to enhancing, what otherwise may appear as anemic competition and only sporadic innovation, their individual approaches towards penalizing websites don’t change the gist of the key message: For the most part, search engine penalties are not to be dreaded. 

Why penalize at all?

Search engines are first and foremost commercial enterprises. Their main goal is revenue creation. Towards that objective, cost of operation must be kept low, while user happiness maintained at a constant high. At the same time it is important to remember that search as a product is immensely complex. The data torrents required in the initial steps of crawling and processing, let alone the processing power needed for ranking solutions are tremendous and constantly growing. At any given time approximately 20% of the globally available data is about to vanish, while another 20% is in the process of changing and yet another 20% is brand new and just coming into existence. Paradoxically flUX is the only constant factor in search. Therefore, it is little surprise that scalable, algorithmic solutions are much preferred. Here’s where one of the most common misconceptions with regard to search engine penalties takes root. Countless articles and first-hand reports describe sites affected by search engine ”algorithm penalties”. All of them are fundamentally wrong. No website ever was or is affected by an “algorithmic penalty”. How could they, given that algorithms are purely input-driven mathematical formulas designed to calculate information and return results based thereon.

If search engines worked ideally, and their algorithms were close enough to perfection to adequately read all input, then that was the end of the story. There were, in this utopian scenario, no actual penalties. We know it isn’t the case however and that’s because algorithms -even tried and tested ones- are prone to fail occasionally. When that happens, that’s when penalties become a reality. Unlike algorithms they are exceptions to the rule.

Because of their motivations, primary objectives and cost awareness, search engines are rather reluctant to issue penalties. In the first instance, these tend to be costly, individual, limited in scope, barely or not at all replicable and worst of all contributing little to improving the core product. Search engines are averse to penalties because there’s very little gain in them from a purely business standpoint. Contrary to popular notion, legal concerns are not at all a reason why penalties are issued relatively sparsely, all facts considered. After all, no individual or organization has thus far managed to successfully litigate against a search engine and to recover their rankings based on court order. Search engines and their indices are private, proprietary property.

Why different approaches?

In a nutshell, penalizing is the manifestation of a small scale system failure, which requires resource allocation and bares no promise for gains of any kind. This helps to explain why most major search engines are reluctant to commit serious ressources to the endeavor. Among the former giants Yahoo! serves here only as a historical example, referring to another era way before it’s sad slide into search oblivion. At a time when Yahoo! still did enjoy a market share it opted for a rather strict if not completely either-in-or-out strategy. Websites found to be in violation with respective guidelines were either demoted or in case the identified transgression were egregiously entirely removed from the index. These so called Judgements were collected in a database internally referred to as EDB in perpetuity. That database wasn’t identical with the WoW or “worst of web” longtail index, reserved for merely low quality content. Websites included in the EDB did stand a chance to recover. A number of dedicated forms referring to situations such as “Site disappeared from Search Results” or “Improving Site Rank for specific Keywords” promised remedy for repentant website operators. Later the Yahoo! Site Explorer did provide similar two-way communication and resolution opportunities. 

More recently Bing and in-particular Google seem to embrace a more nuanced approach. Bing’s response to their Webmaster Guidelines violations requiring action is initially an attempt to mitigate the undesirable impact black hat SEO Company techniques have. If that’s not practicable or effective, the offending site is either demoted or ultimately entirely removed from Bing search results. There’s however no preemptive warning to be expected from the Bing Webmaster Tools. While ultimate Bing penalties seem to last for eternity, there is however a ray of hope for site operators willing to repent. Bing does engage in two way communication through a Support Form. While no turn-around time is guaranteed, the fact that website operators can inquire about their individual websites penalties is laudable. In time and with some effort Bing penalties can be lifted.

Google embraced an even more refined approach, issuing granular, selective and specific penalties depending on the type of transgression identified. And proactively highlighting these to respective website operators via their Google Search Console. Despite the confusing naming the messages are not warnings, since there’s no time to prepare for the penalties impact. At the point of receiving the Google message, the penalty highlighted is already in place, even though it may not be felt acutely yet. Google allows manual penalties, which are officially referred to as manual spam actions, to time-out albeit after a prolonged period of time. And, unlike their competitors, Google has a formalized process for site owners who wish to abide by Google Webmaster Guidelines going forward to get back into good graces, called the Reconsideration Request. Here it is important to point out that the set of documents previously referred to has nothing to do with Google Rater Guidelines, which are used exclusively by hired contractors to assist engineers with evaluating algorithmic experiments. While the reconsideration request process is worthy of a deep-dive to foster better understanding, in this instance it is merely important to acknowledge that while no official turn-around time exists. In some cases, several months pass before a response is received. Google nonetheless chooses to commit experienced employees to manually review each and every reconsideration request sent. Even with the scant information provided via Google Search Console and utilizing the Reconsideration Request all Google manual penalties can be expunged, as long as the violation has been eliminated. 

Why do search engines care at all?

Despite this substantially more labor intensive and significantly more accommodating approach towards website owners demonstrated by Bing and Google, the interested public perception frequently highlights a seemingly harsh, even vindictive actions on search engines part. The fact that 99.9% of all escalations of “penalized” websites vented about on forums refer to sites that fail to live up to the site operators expectation due to poor SEO Company signals is barely known. Most of these discussed cases refer to sites that have not actually been penalized. The constant lamentations suggest however to the online industry that search engines may care for individual websites. Somehow the notion of passionate, loving or hating search engines has taken root. That is fundamentally wrong though because search engines are utterly indifferent towards individual websites or their respective performances in organic search. Their only concern lies with their user satisfaction. Individual websites’ visibility for a given query is of no consequence. This is why search engines allocate only minimum resources towards penalizing websites. Or to lift previously issued penalties. There’s an upside to that dispassionate attitude. It not only allows penalty removal and recovery but it also prevents vindictiveness. Websites are never penalized because of their mere association with known offenders and they can grow in organic search visibility upon their recovery way beyond previously reached highs.

What to make of penalties?

Penalties must be seen for what they truly are: stopgap measures. They are occasional, almost exceptional in the scale of things. For search engines, they are a sore point rather than a hot button issue. Something to deal with swiftly but most definitely not the main theatre of operation. That search engines choose to allocate resources, however limited, to address penalty issues to a small special interest group like online marketers deserves some credit. Yet because they are relatively rare, it appears that penalties have been for far too long receiving unjustified attention within the webmaster community. Rather than dreaded, search engine penalties should be considered as a fact of online life and commerce. Similarly like a driver does not expect to catch a flat tire when getting into the car, his or her driving usually isn’t determined or permanently affected if they actually do catch a flat tire. Some, even skilled webmasters and website owners will have dealt with a search engine penalty at some point in their careers. Few may even experience several penalties over the course of their professional life. Still, these are unlikely to be the defining moments in any way. They are mere bumps on the road of an exciting journey. And the experience gained while dealing with penalties often bears the potential of a virtue out of necessity, ultimately culminating in unprecedented growth and online prosperity.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Kaspar Szymanski is a founding member of Search Brothers and well-known search expert specializing in recovering websites from Google penalties and helping websites improve their rankings with SEO Company Consulting. Before founding SearchBrothers.com, Kaspar was part of the Google Search Quality team where he was a driving force behind global web spam tackling initiatives.  He is the author of the ultimate guide to Google penalties and part of the Ask the SMXperts series.

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Google opens image extension beta adds countdowns to responsive search ads

In May, Google announced it would sunset gallery ads and move forward with image extensions . On Wednesday, the company officially launched an image beta. It has also added dynamic countdown functionality to responsive search ads.

Image extensions in Search ads

When enabled and activated on an ad impression, image extensions show a single right-justified image alongside your text ad. The beta is open for both responsive search ads (RSA) and expanded search ads (ETA),

Image extension displays with a Hugo Boss ad.

Dynamic or manual. There are two image extensions options. You can either upload images relevant to your ads or allow Google to pull images dynamically from your web site. Images should be square at a recommended size of 1200 x 1200 pixels.

Eligibility and results. To find out if you’re eligible, ask your account rep if you have one. Google says image extensions have shown to improve both conversions and click-through rates. Hugo Boss, for example, saw a 2.5x lift in ROI and a 5% increase in click-through rates using image extensions with responsive search ads, according to Google.

FYI, if you’re running campaigns with Microsoft Advertising, that platform has supported image extensions since 2015 at the account, campaign and ad group levels. I don’t know if image extensions are compatible with Google Import tool yet but will be looking into it.

Countdowns in RSAs

Now you can inject dynamic ad copy into your responsive search ads with countdown ad customizers. Countdowns allow you to inject a sense of urgency into your ads by dynamically showing when a promotion is ending.

Countdowns in responsive search ads.

The syntax — triggered by a curly bracket — is the same as it is with ETAs. Simply set your end date, the number of days out the countdown should start and whether it should reflect your account’s time zone or the ad viewer’s time zone. (Consider that if you select the viewer’s time zone, they could be seeing the countdown after your sale or promotion ends.)

Why we care

Both of these new features available for responsive search ads indicate Google is continuing to invest in the format. In other words, it’s not going away any time soon. If you haven’t been testing and experimenting with RSAs, it might be time to take another look.

RSAs may not always outperform ETAs, but these features give you more flexibility. You can also use them as a testing ground for new ad copy variations. Pinning top performing headlines and/or descriptions can also be a useful tactic with RSAs.

Google also announced feature updates for Smart Shopping campaigns on Wednesday.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, running the day to day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin writes about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, marketing agency Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing agency experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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Smart Shopping campaigns get shipping annotations new customer bidding control

Google announced several updates for Smart Shopping campaigns, which run across Search, Display, YouTube, and Gmail, on Wednesday. Here’s a look at what’s rolling out and what’s coming later this year.

Shipping annotations

Starting Wedesndsay in the U.S., Smart Shopping ads can include annotations such as free or fast shipping. Google has long showed annotations, or flags, on standard Shopping ads to highlight price drops and shipping offers. With consumers shopping online more and higher demand continuing to cause shipping delays during the pandemic, highlighting fast or free shipping offers in your ads can be a real draw.

The annotations appear dynamically and pull from your product feed and Google Merchant Center account.

New customer optimization in Smart Shopping

Also starting Wednesday, advertisers can optimize Smart Shopping campaigns for new customer acquisition with conversion goals.

“Conversion value for new customers is the sum of the purchase value and the new customer value you set. The combined value is attributed to a purchase made by a new customer,” explains Google in its help page on the topic.

Google will capture new customers in one of two ways. If you have conversion tracking set up to track purhcases, it will automatically set up an audience based on the last 540 days of campaign activity and tracked purchases. You can also add your own tagging for more control over which customers Google counts as new versus returning.

Immersive ad format and video

Google also announced it may start displaying Smart Shopping ads in a new format starting later this year.

Browsable Smart Shopping ad formats coming later this year.

“Just as Smart Shopping campaigns can optimize bids and placements, the format in which products are displayed will also respond to customers’ needs. We’re adding more visual features to help customers easily discover more retailers, explore options and narrow down who they want to make a purchase with,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land.

“For example, let’s say a customer is browsing around for furniture ideas across websites and apps. They may see a video Display ad from a retailer’s Smart Shopping campaign (the sample image on the right) to help showcase relevant products in that moment. After more research, the customer narrows down their choices and starts searching specifically for ‘side chairs’. They may see a more immersive, browsable experience with a carousel of multiple retailers’ most relevant products. (the left and center images),” the spokesperson added.

Why we care

As with the updates to responsive search ads that Google also announced Wednesday, these updates for Smart Shopping indicate that machine learning-powered formats and campaign types are where everything is headed. Advertisers will have to understand how to leverage controls such as the new customer acquisition conversion value to further inform automation and make them more effective.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, running the day to day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin writes about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, marketing agency Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing agency experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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Augmented reality starts driving sales: AR product engagement increased mobile purchases at eBags

Despite billions of dollars spent over a period of years, virtual reality is still not mainstream – and may never be. Augmented reality (AR) is on a different path however.

Snap filters and Pokemon Go introduced many consumers to AR. And over the past few years, AR features have appeared in numerous brand and retail apps, such as L’Oreal, Wayfair, Crate & Barrel, Gucci, Ikea, Lowes, H&M, Macy’s, Adidas, Amazon and many others. To date, these have mostly been experiments or novelty features.

3D-AR toaster on Macy’s app

Source: Macys.com mobile app

A year ago Google introduced 3D images into search results. It has also rolled out AR enhanced walking directions in Maps and recently expanded the availability of its 3D Swirl Ads format.

Conversion and revenue impact. AR is proliferating and becoming more familiar. But to date there have been few case studies showing a revenue impact. However, Chris Seahorn, SVP of marketing agency and Merchandising for eBags, told me that shoppers interacting with 3D-AR features on the site are converting at much higher rates.

The company saw a 112% increase in mobile conversions and 81% on the PC when people interacted with 3D-AR-enabled products. Equally important, Seahorn told me that there were lower return rates for products with the 3D-AR feature.

Samsonite-owned eBags recently deployed 3D and augmented reality to showcase selected products on their websites, using technology from Vertebrae. The feature allows users to spin and digitally examine products from all angles as well as “view in room.” The company initially deployed the technology on only a few core products and is now expanding its use.

3D product engagement on eBags website

The technology is not unique and is being used by others, but what’s seemingly unique is the real impact it’s starting to have on eBags’ revenue. Seahorn says that 3D-AR complements product thumbnails, video and other features on the site to showcase products. He says he doesn’t have the data yet but suspects that those who engage with 3D-AR are going to show more frequency and lifetime value than other shoppers.

Bringing more ‘real-world’ context to virtual shopping. Seahorn explains eBags was trying to make it easier for customers to experience the product in a more complete way, as they might in a store. And he believes that more AR and immersive digital experiences will be common among retailers as they lean more into e-commerce and close stores.

Major retailers in the U.S. are closing store locations or going out of business as the pandemic takes its toll on traditional shopping. At the same time, e-commerce has seen triple-digit growth in many categories. Seahorn asserted that the post-COVID future of retail looks very different than its past, with fewer stores and smaller retail footprints. He also argued that early adopters of these technologies will have a “first mover advantage.”

Why we care. The AR showcased in the eBags example is a simple (even pedestrian) but practical use case. It brings some of the “physical experience” of the product to digital and gives consumers a better sense of what they’re buying. But ads will be the next and arguably more interesting frontier for this technology, as Google, Facebook and other platforms seek to bring more vitality and immersive engagement to advertisers and consumers alike.

About The Author

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land, a member of the programming team for SMX events and the VP, Market Insights at Uberall.

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Why audience context matters

We all know how valuable audience personas can be for marketers. They outline demographic information and pain points for different types of customers, and can help us picture our customer. However, there is no way for a persona to account for context – what is a real person actually experiencing at the moment they encounter our content? If we’re to produce campaigns that truly connect to our audiences, we must go beyond personas and get specific. 

In an ideal world, we’d write 100% personalized content for every potential customer, but in the real world, we have to settle for using tools to better get into their headspace. Here are tools to help:

Keyword Planners: It’s a crutch to assume you can fire up an SEO Company keyword planner, pick a few phrases, and stuff your content in order to earn organic traffic. In my experience, it’s far better to think of keyword planners as tools to help us understand the specific language our readers are using. Focus on phrases that read as questions, and answer those questions to give immediate value.

Google Trends: Once you have keywords researched, enter them into Google Trends to see what else you can learn about people using those search terms. Look into what geographic locations the searches are coming from, what time of day, or week, or year that searches increase. Can you glean any insight from patterns?

Popular Content: Perform Google searches with terms you’ve identified to see how others answer pressing questions. Can you do a better job? Or maybe fill in gaps in the market?

Knowing what challenges your audiences face is only step one to developing campaigns that connect. Step two is understanding how your customers feel about their challenges and utilizing effective emotional writing to strike a chord.

Show, Don’t Tell. The easiest mistake to make when writing emotionally is to come out and broadcast that you’re doing it. Don’t tell the reader how they feel. Instead, imagine how they would prefer to feel and give them a taste of that. 

Resonate, Don’t Exploit. To prove a need for your product or service, you should evoke, not exploit, emotion in people. It’s easy to exploit intense emotions of fear, anger, agitation in our audiences in order to sell. But it feels fake. Instead, show the reader you understand their emotions and maybe even share them.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Ryan Brock is the founder and CEO of Metonymy Media, an agency of creative writers dedicated to helping businesses and organizations communicate effectively for growth and success. A full-time writer, editor, and entrepreneur for nine years, Brock’s professional focus is on creating fulfilling career opportunities for creative writers while empowering genuine brands to tell powerful stories that connect with audiences on every level to create powerful customer experiences. Brock has edited a number of books and publications, and is also the co-author of Nothing New: An Irreverent History of Storytelling and Social Media.

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Important Update: Changes to the 2020 Search Engine Land Awards

Since its inception in 2015, the Search Engine Land Awards have annually recognized two outstanding individuals as Search Marketer of the Year — one male and one female. The goal was to ensure that there was ample and equal opportunity for women in search to be nominated, made a finalist, and — for one outstanding individual — win the coveted title. We’re proud to announce we achieved that goal in 2019, with female nominees actually outnumbering male nominees. This milestone got us thinking about other ways we could bolster our initiatives of diversity and inclusion. 

Therefore, after much discussion here at Search Engine Land, we have decided to remove the binary distinction associated with this particular category. Moving forward, Search Marketer of the Year nominees will belong to a combined category regardless of gender identity — from which top marketers who have demonstrated exceptional, measurable results in search marketing agency via organic and/or paid channels will be selected. 

As the 2020 Awards have already kicked off and are currently accepting submissions, any nominations already submitted for Search Marketer of the Year will be ushered into the new category. Business owners, executives and managers are encouraged to nominate key team members and/or account leaders who have produced laudable results within their organizations and made a positive impact on the search marketing agency community. Individuals are also encouraged to self-nominate, if they choose! (Don’t be shy… tell us why you rock!) 

Please note: You don’t have to work with someone in order to nominate them. You’re invited to nominate anyone in the industry who you feel deserves recognition for their professional accomplishments or who is an exemplary member of the search marketing agency community. 

Secondly, we will soon unveil a brand new category for the 2020 program that honors organizations that have done exemplary work in bettering the search and marketing agency fields for minorities and the LGBTQ+ community. Applications for this category can be submitted free of charge. 

More diversity and greater inclusion were the motivations behind these two category changes, and we let those initiatives guide us when selecting the recipient of the 2020 Search Engine Land Awards’ charitable donation: COOP Careers. We’re excited and proud to support COOP and the crucial, admirable, meaningful work they do every day. (We encourage you to read more about their mission!)

Finally, we have heard your requests for more time to complete your applications due to massive interruptions in workflow, team and organization structures, and client relations as a result of COVID-19. Therefore, we will be extending the submission deadlines to the following dates:

Early Bird: Submit by Friday August 28, 2020 at 11:59pm EST

Last Chance: Submit by Friday September 4, 2020 at 11:59pm EST

We know many of you have worked hard on your submissions, and we kindly ask for your patience while we allow others from the search community to do the same during these challenging times. 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. 

About The Author

Katie Jordan is Search Engine Land’s marketing agency Coordinator and has been a member of the Search Engine Land / Third Door Media team since 2013, first joining as a Community Intern and later joining the marketing agency team full time in 2016. Katie coordinates the annual Search Engine Land Awards, works with our Editorial Team to generate the Search Engine Land, marketing agency Land, and MarTech Today Daily Brief newsletters, and works with the marketing agency team on the many projects across Third Door Media brands.

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How to source and vet content writers [Video]

Effective content writers bring quality to your content that can increase your search visibility, traffic, conversions and help to distinguish your brand from competitors. Unfortunately, finding the right author for your audience and organization can take a considerable amount of time, and that time investment may double if the candidate doesn’t work out. 

Knowing where to look and what to look out for can help you set the foundation for content marketing agency success. Below, agency owners, content writers and strategists share their most useful guidance on how to source and vet potential candidates.

Finding the right content writer

Before you turn to your network. Referrals are a common way to discover writers, and this method can enable you to learn whether the candidate has a history of meeting deadlines or is receptive to feedback before you even approach them. However, relying too heavily on your own network may result in missed opportunities.

“I am cautious of relying solely on referral networks because of a ‘flock’ mentality,” said Shannon K. Murphy, chief strategist at Shine Content Strategy, “We’re not adding diverse voices or thoughts to our branded publications if we only pull from within our networks.” With racial equity taking center stage in the Black Lives Matter movement, brands should consider diverse voices at all levels of the organization. Perpetuating homogeneity can also result in overlooking and missing out on valuable alternative viewpoints.

Leverage social media sites. Platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook can provide you with an abundance of candidates, and knowing how to go about your search can help you sift through potential writers.

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Jessica Foster, Carol Tice, Heather Lloyd-Martin and Mel Carson discuss how to find and foster relationships with content writers on Live with Search Engine Land.

“Go on LinkedIn and do a targeted search,” Carol Tice, founder of the Make a Living Writing blog and Freelance Writers Den community, said during our session of Live with Search Engine Land focusing on how to find and foster relationships with content writers, advising that employers search for the exact type of writer they need (using a query like “freelance Seattle technology writer,” for example). “What LinkedIn will return you is the people you’re connected to — your connections will rank at the top, so it’s a way of doing the referral network, but in a bigger lens,” she said, recommending that employers also look into job boards specifically for writers.

“If you’re looking for a particular type of writer, I go to niche Facebook groups and try to find writers that way,” said Jessica Foster, SEO Company copywriter and content strategist at Keys&Copy SEO Company, adding, “If they’re very active, they’ve branded themselves professionally on either Facebook or LinkedIn, then to me, that’s a good sign.” A writer’s LinkedIn recommendations or their Facebook business page may also provide you with useful information on potential candidates.

Scope out industry publications. “When looking for writers, check out publications in your field that you like and admire, chances are these blogs are using freelance writers who are subject matter experts,” Murphy said, noting that this method can help you cut back on time spent educating writers about your industry and enables you to get a peak at their work. If there’s a potential match, you can then search for the writer on Twitter or LinkedIn to see if they’re open to working with you.

This strategy can also save you time even after you’ve attracted the right talent. “Collecting publications and articles you admire is an oft-neglected but vital part of the content strategy process — you need to be able to show writers examples of the style and tone that you’re trying to emulate,” she added.

Incentivize writers to come to you. You can increase the likelihood of writers coming to you first by providing them with equitable compensation and development opportunities.

“I came in to do blogging, [but] I’m looking for a chance to write an email sequence around a post or offer, to do a free product for subscribers, to do case studies, white papers, special reports, e-books,” Tice said of the growth opportunities that she, as a writer, looks for when working with clients. “I’m not going to be interested if I don’t see there are more lucrative and high-visibility projects included,” she said.

“Producing the kind of content we want to see from content writers has been hugely helpful in attracting the caliber of candidates we’re looking for,” said Devin Bramhall, CEO of content marketing agency agency Animalz, “It’s a bit more of a long-term play when it comes to sourcing talent, but it works, because you become the place great writers aspire to work for.”

Vetting your prospective writers

You need more than published samples. Writing samples are one of the most common ways to evaluate a candidate, and while they do provide you with more information to work with, they should not be the only thing you assess.

“Existing clippings get them in the door, but given that published blog posts and/or articles can be edited (sometimes heavily) from others, it’s not always a good reflection of a writer’s capabilities,” said Bramhall, “We ask candidates to choose a piece of content marketing agency and evaluate it, as well as submit a short writing project.” Bramhall’s agency also provides clearly defined role descriptions and expectations to facilitate their own evaluation process.

“Ask them to give you raw drafts instead of their finished ones,” said Tice. Requesting the first submitted draft provides you with a glimpse of their writing before the editing process and would reveal whether their published samples were heavily edited.

Your writers need to be trainable. “The [writers] that are a little bit self-effacing . . . they’re the ones that I think, ‘Now this is somebody that can be coached and mentored to learn that other stuff’,” said Mel Carson, CEO at Delightful Communications. The honesty and attitude that candidates display can help agencies and brands determine how successful their relationship is likely to be.

To mitigate the risk of onboarding an underperforming writer, employers can start their writers off on a trial basis, Heather Lloyd-Martin, CEO at SuccessWorks, recommended. “If they can’t handle edits or constructive criticism . . .  that’s not somebody that I can work with because, in my head, they’re not trainable for my firm,” she said.

Watch the full Live with Search Engine Land session for more insights on finding and fostering relationships with content writers. You can also view our full list of Live with Search Engine Land sessions here.

About The Author

George Nguyen is an Associate Editor at Third Door Media. His background is in content marketing agency, journalism, and storytelling.

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Free Webinar | July 28: NerdWallet CEO Shares How He Grew an $800 Investment into a $500M Company

Join us as we speak with Tim Chen, CEO of NerdWallet, to discuss best practices to start and grow a successful company.

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July 16, 2020 2 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Some of the most successful businesses are started in a downturn. Mark your calendars to hear how one such leader did this after being laid off from Wall Street as a result of the 2009 financial crash. This C-suite leadership series is hosted by Comparably co-founder/CEO Jason Nazar as he sits down for a virtual fireside chat with Tim Chen, co-founder/CEO of NerdWallet — the go-to informational website that helps consumers make the smartest decisions on all things personal finance. Chen started the fintech company with only $800, and it is now valued at over $500 million with more than 150 million unique visitors on the site annually. The conversation will center around practical “If I Knew Then…” leadership advice, personal life philosophies and guiding principles, and the challenges and opportunities for entrepreneurs in today’s landscape. 

Other topics that will be covered include:

The tools to start and grow a successful company

What it means to provide transparency in leadership 

Maintaining a consistent vision as you scale a business

Building the right teams and mission-driven employees 

Weathering a market downturn

Register Now

Jason Nazar is co-founder/CEO of Comparably, a leading workplace culture and compensation site that provides the most comprehensive and accurate representation of what it’s like to work at companies. Under his leadership, the online platform has accumulated more than 10 million employee ratings on 60,000 U.S. companies to become one of the most trusted third party resources for workplace and salary data since launching in 2016.

Tim Chen is co-founder/CEO of NerdWallet, a consumer finance website and app dedicated to providing clarity for all of life’s financial decisions. Inspired by his own passion for personal finance, he got the idea for NerdWallet when his sister asked him for a credit card recommendation and he ended up compiling an Excel spreadsheet based on hundreds of hours of research. Since then, Tim has set the strategic vision for NerdWallet, spearheading its growth from just that Excel spreadsheet to a go-to financial resource that offers actionable insights and tailored recommendations on credit cards, credit score, student loans, mortgages, car insurance and more to more than 100 million people every year. 

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They Messed with the Wrong Gal: What to Do When Your Social Media Gets Hacked

July 15, 2020 8 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

This morning I spoke with a friend I met 10 months ago in Chicago at the first Next Global Impactor event. The event was a competition for impact-driven individuals from around the world. I was a team coach and speaker. Hunter won first place for her nonprofit organization Chemo Buddies For Life, a cancer support group that provides support for patients dealing with any variety of cancer. The organization provides support to patients and those who care for them during treatment and beyond.

A resident of the greater L.A. area in California, Hunter is a survivor of cancer. She’s also a survivor of abuse, having escaped 19 years ago from a bitterly unhappy marriage with her four children, now grown. Now re-married, she exudes a feminine energy. But she’s also a force to be reckoned with, which the team of hackers who took over nine of her social media accounts this week learned the hard way 

“It was like a scene out of ‘WarGames,’” she said as we laughed about the worst moment, as she battled a hacker in real-time to change the password on one of her three Facebook accounts faster than the hacker could keep on changing it back. 

But what she’d dealt with in the 24 hours before our visit was no laughing matter. A social media hacking could happen to any of us, and potentially already has — a Harris poll by the University of Phoenix says that two out of three adult respondents with social media accounts report knowledge of their accounts being hacked) In fact, the Harris survey continued, more than 70 percent of hacks at the time of the survey (in 2016) were propagated manually, by social media users unwittingly sharing and forwarding posts that come with malware attached. 

Most of us have already been victims. The increasing prevalence of #WFH makes us even more vulnerable as many remote workers who’ve been displaced quickly during the health crisis aren’t being sufficiently protected by home wireless when the protections from workplace firewalls are gone.  

Hunter is especially vulnerable. Thanks to her showing in the Next Impactor contest, which was decided in large part by donation and votes, she’s amassed a massive following on her primary social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. All three were hacked. Worse still, she maintains not one but three separate accounts on each platform that represent her personally as well as two charitable organizations and initiatives she leads. 

That’s nine accounts, all of which the hackers were weaponizing to steal her identity and information to collect money from the many people who trust her. 

Related: Your Identity Could Be Used in Online Dating Scams. Here’s How to …

How did she stop them? 

Hunter’s first clue came at “zero dark thirty” on June 24, 2020, when a key member of her team called to alert her to a LinkedIn message they’d received that was clearly not coming from her. She checked it out. Sure enough. Then the messages started pouring in from users on Instagram and then Facebook. It was a full-on assault. 

Hunter is an especially appealing target to hackers since she has a large following, and a philanthropic profile, so is regularly inviting followers to contribute to different causes. In other words, a request for money wouldn’t be out of the norm. 

But what could she do? There were three accounts on each platform, all being attacked. There were nine logins, and one of her.  

What do you do when your social media is hacked? 

Adrenaline kicked in quickly. Hunter’s first move was to change the passwords on each affected account, thus setting off the speed test with the hacker repeatedly changing them back. Pausing to breathe, she thought “What can I do right now that a hacker couldn’t?” Two things, it turned out — first, she could quickly request two-step authentications on every account, meaning any password change would need to be confirmed with a passcode the platform could send to her phone via text. Voila. With new passwords in place she could revert back to the single-step and the hacker was stopped. Second, she could do a live post to her followers, as her image and voice was something the hacker couldn’t replicate. Immediately, through a quick video, she alerted followers on all platforms about the hacking attempts, told them not to respond, and asked them to report any fraudulent message. 

Stunningly, the hacker was brazen enough to be following her Instagram account from the phony Tamara Hunter account they’d created. The hacker was disguised as Hunter while watching her every step. So she blocked and reported the fake Tamara. 

Finally, she reported the attacks on all three platforms. Reporting on Instagram was especially problematic as each time she submitted, she was able to get only partway through the report before the platform would drop her connection, requiring multiple attempts before the submittal would finally “take.” Then she alerted the FTC, with ample evidence in her hands at this point. 

Twenty-four hours later, all three platforms have reacted and the fraudulent accounts on all three platforms are gone, with any longer-term remedy in the hands of the FTC. Thankfully, the hackers were thwarted without loss of funds for Hunter or any of her followers. 

Related: 5 Types of Business Data Hackers Can’t Wait to Get Their Hands On

What would a hacker get by impersonating a charity? 

Plenty, it turns out. According to Wired, one of the most typical approaches of hackers on Facebook is to use phishing attacks to learn a charity’s password and quietly install themselves through a phony account as an administrator to the charity’s page. From there they quietly sit until they deem the time is right to begin making posts that announce the charity is now “raising money for animals displaced by wildfires,” for example. They direct donations to an outside link, such as a fraudulent GoFundMe page. In the case the Wired article outlines, the entrepreneur unwittingly made things worse by simply deleting the fraudulent posts as they happened. This only served to embolden the criminal further. She was successful in getting the fraudulent GoFundMe page taken down and the $1,500 collected returned to its donors. 

But the hacker continued to attack her charity pages again and again, under new identities. Months later, weary of the harassment, the entrepreneur finally quietly settled by meeting the hacker’s demand that she repay them the initial $1,500 they’d taken through an anonymous PayPal account. 

In Hunter’s case, the hacker(s) were apparently seeking the phone numbers of her followers to make a bid that for a fee, they could obtain grants for the followers to help them create and succeed in their own philanthropic organizations. Because she has multiple accounts on each platform and many thousands of followers, all aligned in their philanthropic interests, she became a rich target.

So how did they obtain her information? Yes, it is possible a hacker was able to “sniff” her wireless access. But as research shows, the even higher likelihood is that Hunter or one of her team may have inadvertently clicked on a phishing campaign or shared a story or post infected with malware that allowed the hackers to obtain or guess the information they needed to log in. She was lucky. But given the prevalence of social media hacks, what should every entrepreneur know and do? 

Consider the following: 

Carefully control who has admin rights on any of your business or charity pages and monitor frequently for the appearance of former employees or anyone you don’t recognize. 

Change your passwords frequently and use two-factor authentication for any password retrieval or change. 

Use different passwords on your various social media platforms (and perhaps even make them different for each of your multiple pages) to ensure that a hacker’s potential access to one of your pages doesn’t allow them to have access to all. 

If you are hacked, the first thing to do is change your password immediately, check your financial accounts for unauthorized transactions, and alert all of your followers, through video or voice message if possible, about the nature of the hack and what you suggest they do. 

Gather all evidence and report the hacker to the platform (but know that even with urgency, it may take them 24 hours or so to respond). 

Finally, you can go to FTC.gov to view additional input on how to avoid being hacked and what to do in the event that it happens. If you determine anything has been stolen, you can report the theft and seek redress through the steps recommended at IdentityTheft.gov.

Related: How Hackers Take Advantage of a Crisis

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What Startup Funding Will Look Like in a Post-Covid-19 World

July 15, 2020 6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The first challenge facing startups in America, Europe and the rest of the world is to survive the pandemic. Not many have survived, and many others have hibernated while the storm has lasted. The fortitude to restart after such a huge blow can be even harder to come by than the fortitude they needed to start in the first place. 

The National Venture Capital Association hasn’t added any cause for optimism in its new report detailing how the coronavirus will impact startups in the coming quarters. The NVCA started the report with the grimmest prediction, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride”. The NVCA expects VC investments to “drop significantly.”

Related: Starting a Digital Business? Here Are Common Pitfalls to Avoid

A lot of VC’s will take this time to do more of a reappraisal of their current portfolios than taking up new deals. However, some startups are still well poised to still garner some support in the funding sphere. 

The industries that will continue to thrive

According to Oxfordbusiness, “Startups that performed well during the implementation of social distancing and lockdown measures might offer favorable opportunities to investors amid the uncertainty, while the changing investment environment is set to add impetus for greater collaboration and renewed risk evaluation”

The pandemic hit most industries, but not every industry went under. Industries like the cannabis industry saw a renaissance of sorts during the pandemic as arguments were passionately made in favor of CBD-based businesses as essential services during the pandemic by scientists and psychologists. CBD-based businesses were later declared to be essential by many states in the US and Europe. 

This good-fortune created immense innovation within the industry in such a short time with many CBD businesses implementing curbside pickups for CBD using patients and growing their Income significantly within a period when many other industries were in a downturn, signifying great optimism for creative startups in this industry. 

Related: 5 Public Space Companies to Invest in Over the Next Decade

Food delivery and supply services also thrived significantly mid-COVID with the US Chamber of Commerce declaring it one of the most improved industries during the pandemic. The reason is simple, people now spend much more time at home than at restaurants. 

In many states, restaurants were shut down completely. The US Chamber of Commerce highlighted companies like Eat Clean Bro, a meal prep and delivery service operating in New Jersey whose orders went up over 40% and Cannizzaro Sauces, a North Carolina based canned and jarred foods business that also saw a significant upsurge in sales. 

These are just a few of the many industries that thrived in these times. However, many of these businesses have done a great job serving their customers in this period, so much so that they have caused a shift in Investors perception as well as in culture, a culture where they and businesses in their industry are likely to remain a mainstay and hence, attractive for investment.

Startups with social impact are likely to gain more support

The coronavirus coincided with a significant rise in a push for social justice after the callous killing of George Floyd by a Police officer in the U.S. No one was quite prepared for the response that the world gave to George Floyd’s killing; an international uprising that spanned countries in every continent and a loud outcry. 

The effect has been tremendous with statues of people having confederate connections coming down at an alarming rate and with institutions naming holidays and schools after causes and people sympathetic to the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM). 

This has not just brought to the fore the issues of systemic racism and social injustice that exists in America, it has also highlighted more than ever the need for clear social impact angles in businesses. 

Related: 4 Ways Startups Can Prepare to Survive Economic Tumult

It is becoming increasingly necessary for businesses to integrate a social impact angle, not just as an extra, but as a core part of their business strategy. This pandemic and the many companies that stood up to be counted in helping societies survive alongside the rapid reactions of companies to the BLM movement all over the world have more than ever established the necessity for social impact in the design of startups and businesses. 

This sentiment is not just held on the part of VC’s and Investors but is a mindset that is beginning to dwell in the minds of the everyday customer. The need to be socially relevant has risen beyond corporate social responsibility, this is now about a socially responsible design in business structure. 

Companies like Charitable have succeeded in building a strong socially-relevant business model, their demonstrated ability in getting renowned celebrities and influencers to endorse and promote their client businesses is based squarely on the fact that all their campaigns support a non-profit cause. 

This way, the Influencers do not promote the companies’ clients for the sake of it, but they are supporting the social impact cause against which the brand is laid.

This sentiment has become a key index in informing VC’s and Investors on what startups to fund and so Startups must incorporate clear social impact strategies into the core working of their business if they intend to attract funding much easily.  

Niche crowd-funding platforms will rise

Crowd-funding has in the last decade risen to the fore as a plausible means of raising capital and general funding for your business. However, while we have all gotten conversant with Platforms like Kickstarter who have done an immense job in helping startups across the board acquire funding, we are now forced to consider other platforms more closely in the wake of this pandemic. 

Niche-based crowdfunding platforms are already beginning to make their statements as the need for professionalism and precision in investment becomes necessary post-COVID. The idea behind their gradually rising relevance is that brands stand a greater chance of getting funded on a platform-specific to their industry because all investors that invest in that platform are in a sense looking for them. 

There are a number of lesser-known platforms who have been doing an amazing job before this pandemic and who are now poised to make an even greater impact. 

This trend is likely to grow and not let up as Investors aim to re-assess and streamline their portfolios after the heat that they have had to bear from the pandemic. 

In time, our states will fully reopen and business will resume. It may not be business as usual, but we must all find a way to move on. Just as there are many ways to catch a fish, there are many ways to keep your startup alive. Just know that your first step is to decide to strive on and not to faint.

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Peacock? HBO Max? The New Streaming Giants Explained.

July 15, 2020 14 min read

This story originally appeared on PCMag

The video-streaming industry is crowded; it can be hard to wrap your head around the scope of the entertainment giants that make up this market.

Each service has its own origin story, business interests, and shifting content pile of exclusive originals and licensed content. There’s also a wide assortment of packages, plans, and technology under the surface. HBO Max and Peacock just made their debuts to take on Netflix, Prime Video, and all the rest, so a running market breakdown is certainly in order.

Here are the most important streaming services to watch in the next hyper-competitive phase of this industry.

Netflix

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The modern streaming industry begins and ends with what many have dubbed the “Netflix Effect.” Its digital subscription model and massive investment in originals have set the bar for the market. Netflix reported 182.8 million paid global subscribers in Q1 2020, thanks in part to a boost in quarantine-related sign-ups.

Competitors are ready to pounce. Instead of fighting off startups, Netflix is up against tech juggernauts like Apple and Amazon, and century-old media giants. The latter have not only unveiled competing services, but moved to reclaim shows like The Office and Friends for their own services.

Netflix saw all of this coming. The one-time DVD rental company-turned-streaming goliath keeps burning cash and raising debt financing to fund its original-content creation, which spans everything from Stranger Things and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman to a vast trove of cheaper films and series to pad its increasingly originals-reliant library. To stem the losses of other classic sitcoms, the service reportedly spent more than $500 million for the rights to stream Seinfeld beginning in 2021.

For now, the strategy is still working. Though Netflix saw its first-ever subscriber drop in the US in Q2 2019, that came after adding a record 9.6 million subscribers in Q1 2019 and a price hike. COVID-19 has shut down production across all streaming services, but subscribers have plenty to watch while stuck inside.

And despite spending more than $1 billion a year on technology, CEO Reed Hastings still positions Netflix as more of a media company akin to Disney than a tech company like Apple or Amazon. Netflix is “mostly a content company powered by tech,” he told Recode last year, in response to a question about industry regulation.

That posturing is largely semantic; in reality, modern streaming players are all media, entertainment, and tech companies rolled into one.

Amazon Prime Video

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Unlike Netflix, Amazon has no discernible caps on how much it can spend, and its business model isn’t dependent on video subscribers. Amazon has more than 150 million Prime members as of January 2020, all of whom have access to Prime Video.

Prime Video’s core value is to drive more Prime subscriptions at $119 a pop per year, which went up from $99 in 2018, the first price hike since 2014. So Amazon has no qualms about shelling out billions for original series and films on the indie festival circuit through Amazon Studios. Standalone Prime Video costs $8.99 per month.

Amazon also owns Prime Video’s underlying infrastructure. Streaming high-quality live and on-demand video requires a complicated content-delivery pipeline, from data hosting and storage to encoding and packaging files, all the way down to content delivery networks (CDNs) and playback. Amazon controls the pipes, and Prime Video can enjoy seemingly infinite scale thanks to Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Other streaming platforms need Amazon’s cloud, too. Netflix, for instance, spent years and untold millions building out its own global CDN network (the only streaming provider to do so) but relies entirely on AWS for cloud computing and storage.

“We package up and have built our technology infrastructure on top of AWS,” Girish Bajaj, VP of Software Engineering for Amazon Prime Video, told PCMag in 2019. “Because we serve millions of customers and operate this massive amount of scale, it gives both Prime Video and AWS expertise in how to actually operate these systems, and with that level of scale comes cost savings that we then are able to offer back to customers on the consumer side as well as the enterprise side.”

Amazon also owns IMDb, which launched a free, ad-supported streaming service in January 2019. Originally known as IMDb Freedrive, it was later rebranded to IMDb TV.

Apple TV+

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Apple launched Apple TV+ in November for $4.99 a month. Its content library is small, so Apple is giving one year of free Apple TV+ to those who buy a new iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV.

Launch titles included: cable news drama The Morning Show starring Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell, and Reese Witherspoon; future post-apocalyptic series See starring Jason Momoa and Alfre Woodard; an Emily Dickinson biopic series starring Hailee Steinfeld; and sci-fi space race series For All Mankind. Most of the shows received tepid reviews, but Apple has billions of dollars worth of original content investments in its development pipeline to populate the fledgling streaming service in the next year or two. This month, for example, Tom Hanks’ war drama Greyhound skipped theaters due to the coronavirus and debuted on Apple TV+.

The redesigned Apple TV app is available across media-streaming devices, including Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, and smart TVs from Samsung, Sony, LG, and Vizio. It offers original content through Apple TV+, as well as streaming app and network subscriptions through TV Channels, which is similar to the add-ons offered by Prime Video and Hulu.

TV Channels launched in May with some big partners, including Amazon Prime Video, HBO, Hulu, Showtime, Starz, CBS All Access, and many others (but not Netflix); Apple showcased Prime Video originals such as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in demos during its launch event. TV Channels also let users choose traditional cable bundles from providers such as Optimum and Spectrum, as well as over-the-top (OTT) cable replacement services including AT&T TV Now.

This strategy is part of Apple’s broader push into software and services: It has grand designs to expand to industries beyond the steadily growing chunk of recurring revenue it currently makes from iCloud, Apple Music, and Apple Pay. Amid stagnating iPhone sales, Apple’s glossy 2019 launch event for its new slate of services—including Apple News+ and Apple Arcade—highlighted how it sees its future growth.

Hulu

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Hulu, which had 30.4 million subscribers as of Q1 2020, is a particularly intriguing player given its new mouse-shaped overlord. With Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, the entertainment powerhouse also picked up Fox’s 30 percent stake in Hulu and later acquired AT&T and Comcast’s remaining stakes to take full control of Hulu.

Hulu, which long represented the network TV industry’s collective streaming interests, is now another arm of Disney’s entertainment empire, and Disney hasn’t wasted time adding the jewel to its infinity gauntlet.

Beatrice Springborn, VP of Content Development at Hulu, said last year that the service doesn’t measure success by nightly ratings or individual show performance. It’s about getting new subscribers to sign up for Hulu, watch a lot of content on the platform, and remain subscribers for the long haul.

At the time, Springborn said her team was laser-focused on “making Hulu the number-one choice for TV.” Following Netflix’s price increase, Hulu took the opposite route and cut the price of its entry-level ad-supported plan from $7.99 to $5.99 per month. But it did raise the price of its live TV plan from $39.99 to $54.99 per month.

HBO Max

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WarnerMedia is one of the more recent examples of high-profile corporate consolidation fueling the next wave of streaming services, and the result is HBO Max, which launched in May 2020 for $14.99 per month. An ad-supported pricing tier and live TV is planned for 2021.

The pool of media brands and TV channels centralizes AT&T’s Time Warner assets under one streaming roof, with HBO as its centerpiece. HBO Max is pricier than its rivals, but it costs the same as HBO Now/GO, which only includes the HBO library. And all HBO Now/GO users get upgraded to HBO Max for no extra charge.

WarnerMedia is betting that streaming viewers will be enticed to subscribe through a combination of high-quality HBO content, 50 new original series by 2021, new and existing shows and movies from brands under its banner like CNN, Cartoon Network, and Warner Bros, the Studio Ghibli animated film collection, and a selection of TV shows including Friends, Sesame Street, The Big Bang Theory, Dr. Who, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, South Park, and Rick & Morty (for which WarnerMedia paid handsomely to license).

Peacock

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Comcast-owned NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock, launched for Comcast customers in April and for everyone else on July 15. It offers a free, ad-supported tier with 7,500 hours of programming, including next-day access to current NBC series, as well as live news and sports television coverage. Peacock Premium is $5 a month ($49.99 a year) for 15,000 hours of live and on-demand content and 4K/HDR streaming. Peacock Premium Plus gets rid of ads for $10 per month ($99.99 per year).

Toplining Peacock’s originals is a sci-fi adaptation of Aldous HUXley’s classic novel Brave New World starring Alden Ehrenreich and Demi Moore. Upcoming series include a Battlestar Galactica reboot from Mr. Robot and Homecoming creator Sam Esmail, and revivals of Saved By the Bell and Punky Brewster featuring original cast members.

NBC is also dipping back into the well for a streaming-only season of A.P. Bio and a second spin-off movie of one-time USA series Psych, along with a number of other scripted and unscripted originals, including an adaptation of the Dr. Death true crime podcast starring Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater.

On the unscripted front there’ll be a Saturday Night Live docuseries from Lorne Michaels, a Real Housewives spin-off, a new talk show series starring Jimmy Fallon, and a new weekly late night show starring Late Night with Seth Meyers’ Amber Ruffin. As with Disney+, NBCUniversal is also stocking Peacock with a vast library of shows and movies to which it already has the rights: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Cheers, Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier, Friday Night Lights, and Will & Grace, among many others. Users will also be able to stream movies from the Universal archive.

NBCUniversal’s bet is that plucking The Office from Netflix in 2021, along with some nostalgia-inducing originals, will be enough content to hold its own in the crowded market.

CBS All Access / Showtime

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One media giant that often flies under the radar in the streaming wars is CBS, which owns Showtime and CBS All Access. The latter has spent a modest original-content budget on a few big franchises, headlined by Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard; The Good Wife spin-off, The Good Fight; a reimagining of The Twilight Zone from Jordan Peele; and a coming adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand.

CBS All Access is $5.99 a month with limited commercials or $9.99 a month without ads. Showtime is $10.99 for the standalone service, but you can buy or add the network to existing subscriptions through Prime Video, Amazon Fire TV, Hulu, Roku, Android, or iOS, or through a long list of cable and OTT streaming providers for varying prices. It’s also available to existing cable subscribers as Showtime Anytime.

Now that CBS has re-merged with Viacom, the company can draw upon a host of properties including MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon to bolster its streaming offerings.

CBS has been in the digital media and streaming games longer than most, going back to its 2004 deal to buy SportsLine (before CBS and Viacom split up in 2006) and CBS’ subsequent acquisition of CNET for $1.8 billion in 2008. CBS has built its own streaming infrastructure atop that stack and now has its business firmly planted in all the big buckets: traditional cable and news, live sports, premium cable with Showtime, and a standalone streaming app in CBS All Access. CBS wants to top 16 million subscribers for Showtime and CBS All Access by year’s end.

Disney+

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To get a sense of where the broader entertainment and streaming industry is going for the long term, Disney’s strategy may be the model to watch. Its much-hyped $6.99/month Disney+ streaming service, launched in November and has already topped 54.5 million subscribers.

Disney’s foray into streaming market dates back to 2016, when it invested $1 billion for a 33 percent stake in BAMTech. The video-streaming company—which was initially spun out of Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media (MLBAM) arm—at one time powered streaming apps including MLB.TV, HBO Now, the NHL and PGA Tour apps, PlayStation Vue, and even the WWE Network streaming app before Disney took full control and rebranded BAMTech as Disney Streaming Services.

BAMTech’s outside-consulting focus came to a halt when Disney bought another 42 percent stake to take majority control of it in 2017, and announced its direct-to-consumer streaming services, which would become ESPN+ and Disney+, in the same press release. ESPN+, which costs $4.99 a month or $49.99 per year, has more than 7.6 million subscribers.

Disney’s advantages outweigh its challenges. Armed with original Marvel and Star Wars series, the Disney and Pixar film vault, Disney Channel kids programming, and the 21st Century Fox catalog—including National Geographic—Disney+ looms large.

Big-budget franchises like Marvel and Star Wars are key to Disney’s business strategy in all their forms: from Disney book series and toys, to blockbuster films and TV shows, to cruise lines and theme parks such as the massive Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge parks. Disney’s end-to-end pipeline is the most fully realized version of a true content-industrial complex, and the one piece missing until now was a streaming subscription service.

As the new players have found, building a streaming platform from scratch takes time. Streaming expert Dan Rayburn described BAMTech as “the special forces of our industry. They’re the best at what they do, and they’ve been doing OTT streaming longer than anyone. And by the time Disney+ rolls out, it will still have taken them 18 months to build it.”

The man who built it is Joe Inzerillo, the CTO of Disney Streaming Services. Inzerillo is the former CTO of BAMTech and one of the founders of MLBAM. He oversees all Disney’s video-streaming tech, including Disney+ and ESPN+.

Inzerillio told PCMag last year that Disney built its streaming interface to highlight its moneymakers—it’s sprawling, interconnected Marvel and Star Wars cinematic universes.

“The thing I find so incredibly compelling about [Marvel and Star Wars] is that it’s they’re one enormous narrative with a bunch of stories around it,” said Inzerillo. “So the user interface of a company’s streaming service that makes epic sagas like that needs to be user-connected and one narrative designed to showcase the content for you and put it in front of the fans that love it, not get in the way. But it also needs to be personalized. It needs to be able to do all sorts of things. So it’s the fusion of all those components to create this vision of a constant narrative.”

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How Small Businesses Can Leverage AI to Battle Bigger Competitors

July 15, 2020 6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Previously relegated to Hollywood fantasy, artificial intelligence (AI) is now one of the fastest-growing industrial capabilities. In fact, AI as an industry is projected to surpass $390 billion globally by 2025, up from $24.9 billion in 2018. 

At its core, AI seeks to transform information into intelligent, automated action. The consolidation of data structures and the creation of unique algorithms allow systems to automatically learn and recreate patterns that they’ve previously synthesized. 

While tech giants like Amazon, Google and Facebook annually invest hundreds of millions of dollars in AI to develop new products, marketing programs and enhance their platforms, small businesses can also leverage machine learning, a field of computational statistics where algorithms automatically learn and improve tasks without explicit programming, and predictive modeling to improve operations and grow at the same time. 

Related: How Is Artificial Intelligence Revolutionizing Small Businesses?

AI and related applied sciences are commonly perceived as advancements that take jobs away from the labor force. However, the core purpose of AI is to make jobs and responsibilities more efficient by automating specific tasks and revamping outdated processes, allowing workers to maximize more critical areas of their profession. Simply put, AI either automates the execution of simple tasks or enhances our ability to perform complex tasks.

In fact, 54 percent of executives have said that AI has already increased their business productivity. Charlie Burgoyne, founder and CEO of Valkyrie, an Austin-based AI-consulting firm, believes that the technology is particularly critical for up-and-coming startups to help reduce burdensome operations.

“AI can be extremely beneficial in the automation of operational functions, such as financial management, risk mitigation, accounting and even legal work,” he explains. “In turn, this allows leadership to holistically understand the state of their company while prioritizing the strategic direction of their business as opposed to focusing on the minutia of the mechanics.”

For example, an owner of a startup apparel company collects data related to purchasing trends and customer patterns, but likely doesn’t have the resources to sift through all the information without taking valuable time away from day-to-day operations. By incorporating that data into custom machine-learning models, the business can better examine how to position popular product lines based on seasonal trends and improve cash flow management and future inventory. And because the data is examined in real-time, a process that would normally take weeks or months can be drilled down to just a few days. 

Emerging tech and AI expert Valeria Sadovykh, Ph.D. says that, “Small businesses are in a much better position to savor the benefits from AI, and there should be no excuses for not utilizing basic features for enhanced business decision-making and competitive advantage.” 

She adds that small businesses usually have their data “easily accessible with lower volumes and smaller data sets. In addition, in the current environment, every bit of digital information that competitors produce is also available for gathering and analyzing for better decision-making.”

Prioritize the Customer

The old adage that the customer is always right still rings true, but it’s now even more critical to find and maintain a relationship with the right customer. A recent MIT Technology Review Insights survey of more than 1,000 business leaders discovered that 87 percent of respondents have begun deploying AI in their business, with most implementing various programs to improve customer service.

Even though a startup yoga studio or ecommerce jewelry store doesn’t have the capital to match the efforts of billion-dollar conglomerates, they possess an asset that can be just as powerful: customer relations. Knowing who your customer is goes a long way, but providing personalized value goes even further towards creating a cherished bond. 

Ninety-six percent of marketers agree that efforts to personalize a business transaction or experience will help to advance the customer relationship. Startups can use AI and personalization to their benefit by leveraging existing data to build a more intimate customer relationship. From immediately notifying a customer about a specific product back in stock or providing up-to-the-minute inventory status, automation can help maintain and reinforce strong customer relationships that save time and result in continued satisfaction. 

As Dr. Sadovykh comments, “No doubt that AI can be used to streamline business processes, which is beneficial for both parties in terms of efficiency and cost. However, not all consumers are the same, and for some who are looking for support, individualization and like longer human interaction, traditional AI might diminish returns. In this case, businesses should tap into the Industry 5.0 concept, where consumers can directly interfere with AI to add a personal human touch to automation and efficiency. Businesses would need to designate their AI algorithms per classified customer base to provide a high degree of ‘hands-on’ personalization and customization. That is where human intelligence works in harmony with cognitive computing.”

Collect as Much Data as Possible

Small businesses don’t have the lUXury of scores of data that major corporations have at their fingertips, but they can still work with what what’s available to them, whether it’s a new business on the rise or a long-time mom-and-pop shop. Using predictive modeling tools to analyze customer relationship management (CRM) data helps businesses of all kinds discover patterns that can go undetected by the untrained eye, providing insights on how to best target future customers or clients and improve current customer retention.

“If your business is like a car, then think of AI and machine learning as the automatic windshield wipers that provide an optimized view of the road in front of you,” adds Burgoyne. “It’s becoming an essential asset that enables businesses and employees to operate at peak capacity.”

Drive Revenue

While large corporations tend to take up a majority of headlines, small businesses are still the lifeblood of the American economy. According to the Small Business Administration, there are roughly 30.7 million small businesses in the United States, accounting for nearly half (47.3 percent) the U.S. workforce. 

As more and more companies begin to adopt AI and machine-learning capabilities within their business strategies, it’s crucial to examine and understand where AI can automate certain processes. When paird with AI, sales — the quintessential driver of growth for any organization — can increase business leads by 50 percent, according to the Harvard Business Review. The future is also bright across most industries, with estimates forecasting that AI has the potential to boost average profitability rates by 38 percent and lead to an economic increase of  $14 trillion by 2035.

Related: 6 AI Business Tools for Entrepreneurs on a Budget

Small businesses of all kinds can lean on AI to help strengthen various assets of their day-to-day operations — from sales and customer service to product inventory or corporate finances. Small-business owners who can automate time-consuming responsibilities will end up having more room to grow their core organizational components and ultimately compete with bigger players in the arena. 

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4 Reasons You Should Have a Board of Advisors

July 15, 2020 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

A board of advisors is a group of individuals who are appointed to provide counsel, advice, and support for businesses and their leaders. Unlike a board of directors, which brings with it formality, liability, and expense, a board of advisors is an informal and inexpensive way to have a group that offers guidance. A board of advisors has no formal power or legal authority — instead think of it as an informal team of experts.

All businesses can benefit from a board of advisors, but they are particularly helpful for startups and businesses that are growing. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder, tells leaders, “The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.” For many businesses, a board of advisors can serve as those people and can help to guide businesses to where they want to be. Here are 4 key ways that a board of advisors can add value to your business. 

Offering an outside perspective

One of the greatest advantages that a board of advisors can bring your business is an outside perspective on important issues. Advisors bring different opinions, perspectives, and experiences than your leadership team has. They are able to look at issues like business performance, market trends, and long-term strategy through a different lens and in an unbiased way. Having this perspective can help to identify blindspots and problem areas and can be invaluable when it comes to strategic planning. As a result, the ability to get an unbiased, outside perspective from knowledgeable individuals is perhaps the key benefit of having a board of advisors. 

Related: What’s the Difference Between an Advisory Board and a Board of …

Expanding your business’s network

A strong board of advisors can also help to expand your business’s network, which is especially important for startups and small businesses. Having a well-connected board immediately expands your organization’s contacts and can help you to build or expand your presence in relevant markets. Additionally, your board members can utilize connections to help with funding, establishing strategic partners, connecting with vendors, and connecting with other industry experts. A strong network is key to growing and developing your business, and a board of advisors is an effective way to quickly expand your network and to add key contacts. 

Supplementing and expanding organizational leadership

A board of advisors is first and foremost there to support, guide, and advocate for your leaders and executive team. As such, they provide two key leadership benefits: They are able to fill skill and expertise gaps while also developing the skills of your leadership team. 

A strong board of advisors is selected to offer different areas of expertise and experience than your corporate leadership possesses. As a result, they are able to offer advice that increases the effectiveness of your leadership team.

More importantly, perhaps, they can help your leadership build skills and become more effective. It’s important that your executive team is consistently growing and developing, and a board of advisors is an effective way for your team to get the support and guidance needed to ensure that they’re regularly becoming more effective leaders and managers. 

Increasing your credibility with investors, clients, and vendors

Another way that a board of advisors can add value to your organization is by building credibility with investors, clients, and vendors. Having a board of advisors instantly gives your business more credibility, which only increases if you have a strong board of advisors made up of industry experts and community leaders. This can help build trust with investors and potential investors while also making customers and vendors more willing to work with you. Having a board of advisors improves your community relations and public relations and is an effective way to immediately gain credibility with key stakeholders and clients. 

Related: You Grew Your Startup, Now Build Your Advisory Board

Be clear about what you need and what you want to accomplish

Having a board of advisors adds value to your business in many ways and can provide invaluable support, guidance, and advocacy for your executive team. For many businesses that want to avoid the expense, formality, and liability associated with a board of directors, a board of advisors can be an informal, inexpensive, and effective way to develop a team of experts. That said, to get the most out of this team, it’s important to be strategic about how it’s developed. 

When considering creating a board of advisors, first consider the strengths and weaknesses of your management team and work to build a board with the skills to address and compensate for some of the weaknesses. Additionally, before developing your board, it’s helpful to have some clear goals about what you want the board to accomplish. Finally, going into it with a general idea of the size and structure of the board can help make this process smoother. 

In addition to suggesting that it’s helpful to spend time with trusted advisors, veteran sports PR and marketing agency executive and Columbia University professor (and member of many company boards) Joe Favorito, more specifically advises, “We always need to grow personally and professionally and the best way to do that is to have people from different backgrounds and areas of expertise around us. They can both reaffirm strategy and hopefully challenge us on next steps. It’s easy to surround yourself with those who will tell you how great you are. What’s better is to have people who show you how great you can be, if you open your mind to different strategies and opportunities.” A board of advisors is a great way for your business to do just that.

Related: How to Solicit Valuable Feedback From Your Board

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Do You Know More Than the Average American About Investing?

Financial advisor Jeff Rose reviews the answers to an online investing quiz most Americans failed.

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July 15, 2020 1 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

According to the CNBC article “The Average American Scored an ‘F’ on This Investing Quiz — See How You Do,” more than half of the 1,000 people surveyed for the financial site Magnifymoney failed to score above a 40% on a 10-question quiz about investing.

Financial advisor Jeff Rose provides the correct answers to the questions from the quiz with explanations for each. The questions from the quiz are:

Which best describes your understanding of compound interest? 

What is the S&P 500?

True or false: When you purchase a stock, that means you’re a partial owner of the company.

What is a dividend?

How is a company’s share price determined?

What is the Dow Jones?

True or false: Novice investors should focus on timing the market to maximize their investments.

What does it mean when a stock has a high P/E ratio?

How long do you have to hold a stock for it to be considered a long-term investment for tax purposes?

Do all stocks pay dividends to investors?

Related: The Tools You Need to Create a YouTube Recording Studio

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5 things you need to know about mobile-first indexing

Marieke van de Rakt

Marieke van de Rakt is the founder of Yoast SEO Company Academy and CEO of Yoast. Her favorite SEO Company topics are SEO Company copywriting and site structure.

As you might know, Google is rolling out mobile-first indexing as we speak. In September 2020, all websites will be ported over to the mobile-first index. But what does that mean for your ranking? Should you be worried? Should you do anything? Google has been pretty vocal on mobile-first indexing. This post serves as a reminder so, I’ll talk you through five things you need to know about mobile-first indexing.

Mobile-first indexing

In March 2018, Google announced that they were going to start with mobile-first indexing. In March 2020, Google announced that it would roll out mobile-first indexing for the whole web. This will happen in September 2020. But what does that entail? It means that from now on, Google will base what it places in the index on the mobile version of your site, whereas they used to index the desktop version of your site first.

This switch is made because more and more searches come from a mobile device and to give those users a better experience, Google decided that it was time to prioritize mobile results. It is important to note that the mobile-first index is not a separate index, Google has only one index from which it serves the results.

1. Do not panic!

From September, the mobile version of every site will be indexed. But that does not mean that anything big is happening. In fact, it probably doesn’t do anything to your rankings. If Google indexes the mobile version of your site, you’ll get a notice in your Google Search Console. This means that Google will determine by the content available on your mobile site how you will rank — both on the desktop as well as on mobile. This sounds pretty big, but for most WordPress sites it’ll have minimal consequences. If you think about it, most WordPress sites have a responsive design. This means that both mobile and desktop display the same content. You’ll have nothing to worry about in this case.

If you have different websites for mobile and desktop and your mobile website has far less content – you do have something to worry about. Everything you are offering on your desktop site should be available on your mobile site — this is called mobile parity. This also includes your structured data and any meta data like titles, descriptions and robots meta tags.

If you’re looking to also improve the speed of your site and the user experience, it might be good to look into the upcoming page experience update by Google as well. Mobile-friendliness is one of the signals that informs the page experience algorithm.

2. Do a mobile-friendliness test

You do not have to have a mobile site to be in the mobile-first index, as Google will index desktop sites as well. But, it’s going to be harder to rank if your site is not mobile-friendly. So there’s work to do for all of you who have not have a mobile-friendly site yet.

Check how Google sees your mobile page

So what do you need to do? Check out Google’s mobile-friendliness test and check whether or not your site is mobile friendly. In our experience, this is a minimum requirement. If your site does not pass this test, your mobile version is not up to scratch. Read our Mobile SEO ultimate guide to learn how to improve your mobile site. Also, be sure to read Google’s documentation on how to get your site ready for mobile-first indexing.

3. Think about UX on mobile

A mobile website needs a different design than a desktop version to appeal to your audience. Your screen is tiny. While it might make sense to discard a lot of content on mobile due to space limitations, that wouldn’t be a good practice.

Of course, you can improve the mobile user experience by following best practices. For instance, Google explained that hamburger or accordion menus are perfectly fine to use. These kinds of menus make sense; they help a mobile user to browse through your website. Putting content behind a tab to make the mobile experience better is also totally fine.

Read more: 10 ways to improve mobile UX »

4. Write mobile-friendly

Reading from a screen is hard. And reading from a mobile screen is even harder than reading from a big screen. To attract a mobile audience, you’ll need to have mobile-friendly copy. This means short sentences and compact paragraphs. You need to make sure your font on your mobile site is large and clear enough, and you need to make sure to use enough whitespaces.

Keep reading: Copywriting for mobile »

5. Check out those mobile snippets

Is your audience mainly mobile? Do they come from the mobile search results to your page? Or does most of your organic traffic come from the desktop SERPs? Make sure to check this in your Google Analytics.

If your search traffic is mostly from mobile search result pages, make sure to optimize your mobile snippet in our Google preview.

Check your mobile snippets in the Yoast SEO Company Google preview

Conclusion on mobile-first indexing

Don’t panic about the mobile-first index Google will fully roll out in September 2020. If your website has a responsive design, your content will be similar on both desktop and mobile versions. Please check if that’s the case. If so, the mobile-first indexing will have little consequences for your ranking.

Do take some time to evaluate the mobile version of your website. Is your design good enough? Or could you improve? Are the buttons large enough to tap? What about your content? Could you make your text more readable for a mobile audience? Making sure your website has a kick-ass mobile experience is something you need to get started on. This will make a difference in your rankings shortly.

Read on: How to improve your mobile site »

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Replay: How to find (and foster) relationships with content writers

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At SMX Next, I shared ways that brands can navigate content marketing in times of disruption so that they can avoid missteps, maintain relevance and pave the way for their own recovery. However, a strategy is only as effective as the team executing it.

During the Live with Search Engine Land session that took place later that day, I sat down with Mel Carson, CEO at Delightful Communications; Carol Tice, founder of the Make a Living Writing blog and Freelance Writers Den community; Jessica Foster, SEO Company copywriter and content strategist at Keys&Copy SEO Company; and Heather Lloyd-Martin, CEO at SuccessWorks, to discuss how an effective writer can bring your content to life as well as how to find and foster relationships with them.

Recruiting and training writers is an investment “because they’re the ones that make you money,” Lloyd-Martin said, adding, “They’re the ones that are creating the content that is helping Google position a page, that is helping to entertain or inform your buyer as he or she goes through the buyer’s journey . . . every dollar that you put into [your writers and content] is going to come back to your company in profits.”

This investment is especially important in specialized sectors. “It’s very difficult to find those people, but when we do find them, we prioritize them and try and develop those relationships and make sure that they’re trained and mentored well,” Carson said, explaining that experts are typically practitioners and may not be content with a writer’s compensation, making relationships with these kinds of writers especially vital for success.

However, keeping your writers happy so that they can serve your audience goes beyond compensation and training: brands must also have a well defined content strategy for their writers to carry out. “A lot of clients don’t have that direction — they have this idea of what they want to do in terms of ranking, but unless they have a real strategy in place, you’re relying on your writer to do a lot of this heavy lifting when they’re not really equipped to do that,” said Foster, citing keyword research and topic identification as duties that are often assigned to writers when they’re better suited for content strategists.

The scope of the content you’re creating can also be an important factor for your audience as well as your writers. “Pretty quickly in your career, you catch on to the reality that you only want to be working on successful projects; you want projects you can brag on, that have results and metrics you can show,” Tice said, adding that brands must “have a plan that looks feasible, that looks winnable because [writers are] looking to fill our portfolios with wins.”

Here is the complete list of topics we discussed, with corresponding timestamps:

00:00 – Intro.

09:02 – What are the benefits of prioritizing your relationship with content writers?

17:22 – Challenges that freelance writers face when dealing with clients.

29:16 – The writer-vetting process.

35:43 – How to source writers.

42:06 – The importance of having a detailed brief and SOP.

43:42 – Knowing when to bring in a strategist to get the most out of your writers.

45:22 – How investing in the right writer can improve your content strategy.

Watch the full session above and subscribe to Search Engine Land’s YouTube channel to keep up with future Live with Search Engine Land episodes.

Live with Search Engine Land’s weekly meetups are about giving great marketers a platform to inform, support and convene our global community. If you have an idea for a session or would like to join a panel, email [email protected].

More from SMX Next

About The Author

George Nguyen is an Associate Editor at Third Door Media. His background is in content marketing agency, journalism, and storytelling.

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