Content Marketing – Kayle Larkin

Mega Millennials: Rebuilding Brand Loyalty and Authenticity

Kayle Larkin — Sun, 07 Feb 2021 22:06:09 +0000

For the majority of the last decade, millennials lagged behind previous generations.

Plagued by student loan debt, stagnant wages and poor job prospects in the wake of the 2008 Great Recession.

As this generation takes its place at the center of the U.S. economy, it is critical that advertisers and business owners understand why millennials are so disruptive.

Millennials grew up experiencing large shifts in U.S. society and culture and we are seeing the effects play out in real time.

In an effort to sort through the disruption, this article uses survey data to understand the historical events that influence millennial buying behavior.

Using this information, we make an effort to explain the erosion of brand trust and conclude with examples of how to attract millennials with authenticity.

The first section presents the definition of millennials that we will use and reviews the relevant data on how they live, communicate and shop.

Defining Millennials

Millennials live, shop and communicate differently than every generation before them.

To understand why we must consider the generation-shaping conditions that affect Millennial’s life choices and buying habits:

Sheer size of cohort
Ethnic and Racial Diversity
Political
Economic
Technology

Size

Naturally, the size of each generation affects its influence on macroeconomics.

As described in a number of Pew Research Center reports, Millennials are individuals born between 1981 and 1997, with ages ranging from 23 to 39 in 2020.

The latest population data available from the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 72.1 million people fit within that generation.

72.1 million people in comparison to Boomers (71.6 million) and Generation X (65.2 million) are sure to shake things up a bit.

But they have not always been the majority. As the figure shows, millennials overtook the baby boomer generation in 2015 to become the United State’s largest generation.

This is a major shift – as the baby boomer generation had been the largest population for the previous 60 years.

Diversity

Research highlights not only the sheer size of Millennials but also the racial and ethnic diversity.

The United States has become racially diverse over time. Meaning the white population share has declined while the population share of other racial backgrounds has increased.

Many factors are responsible for the increasing diversity: immigration, interracial marriage, and differential birth rates.

As seen in figure 2, each generation is gradually more racially diverse than the generation that came before it.

Today it is documented that 50% of millennials are white, this is a notable shift from the 70% share of the Baby Boomers Generation.

Political

Millennials are old enough to remember and comprehend the historical significance of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The tragic events of September 11th gave a renewed sense of purpose and strengthened the concept of public service.

A generation already actively engaged in their communities became even more involved.

This is extremely important to understand because it is this community activism millennials need to see from brands they buy from.

Millennial students came of age in an era of political scandal and severe criticism of government.

Growing up amidst the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, developed a different view of political parties and a natural distrust of the establishment.

During the 2008 election, millennials harnessed their collective voice helping to elect the first black president.

Economic Recession

Beyond politics, most Millennials entered the workforce during an economic recession. Creating a greater disparity in social classes and a “slow start” for Millennials.

The severity of the Great Recession left a lasting impression on millennials, much like the Great Depression left a lasting impression on the Greatest Generation.

In Learning from Inflation Experiences, Malmendier and Nagel show that the economic conditions that an individual has experienced in their lifetime can have permanent effects on investment decisions and inflation expectations.

“Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances from 1960 to 2007, we find that individuals who have experienced low stock market returns throughout their lives so far report lower willingness to take financial risk.”

The effects of coming to age during the Great Recession may have permanently changed attitudes toward saving and spending for millennials more so than for generations that were more established at that time.

Technology

Millennials’ life choices and buying habits have been shaped by these historical events in a way that was not the case for older generations.

Technology, specifically the rapid evolution of how people communicate and interact, is of great influence.

Television changed baby boomers’ lifestyles and Gen X grew up as computers were taking hold.

But it is Millennials that felt the explosion of the freedom of information – the internet.

The Internet has given consumers the ability to become their own researchers. Prior to the World Wide Web, consumers made their own conclusions about brands’ claims.

Today within a few clicks, nearly every statement can be contradicted.

Now, this information would not mean much if the millennial generation consisted of free-living college students, binging on Netflix and taking selfies at Coachella.

But that’s not the truth.

Millennials make up a majority of the workforce and are very close to becoming the majority of entrepreneurs.

Millennials are in control now, they are the number one market influencer displacing Baby Boomers who have been in control for the last 60 years.

Brands have to stop advertising and speak to their new audience – one that focuses on people over profits.

Millennials want authentic brands, meaning authentic messages and interactions.

Given this information, there are two paths forward.

You can brush it off as the nonsensical ramblings of a millennial – or you can acknowledge the increasingly crucial role millennials play and do something about it.

If you choose to ignore millennials, you can stop reading and wait for your company to collapse.

If you are smart, you will continue reading this article and learn how to make your brand authentic to attract millenials.

How Millennials Make Buying Decisions

As millennials enter the next stage of life, the oldest among them will turn 39 this year (2020), a clearer picture of the sheer power of their generation is coming into view.

To attract Millennials to your brand, keep in mind the generation-shaping considerations that produced the disruptive Millennial buying decisions:

Distrust the establishment
Freedom of information
Diversity & Activism
Recession minded

Millennials Distrust Brands

Steve Jobs famously said, ‘A brand is simply trust’. He recognised the critical importance of trust to brand loyalty.

Trust between consumers and brands has been on a downward slope for the past few years.

It is necessary to understand this distrust of institutions if brands are going to repair their image and attract the new buying super power – millennials.

After millennials became the majority, the Edelman Trust Barometer recorded an unprecedented decline in the trust of business – from 45% in 2016 to 33% in 2017.

This erosion of trust between consumers and brands has become so severe that according to a poll of young people conducted by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, only the military and the scientific community receive positive support.

In response to the Covid-19 Pandemic the Edelman Trust Barometer did a 2020 Spring Update revealing a significant shift in just 4 short months.

The 2020 Spring Update shows that during the pandemic, the government became the most trusted institution for the first time in 20 years, increasing by 11 points to an all time high of 65%.

Despite the increased trust in government, the pandemic shown a spotlight on systemic inequality:

50% believe business is doing poorly – completely failing at putting people before profits.
Less than half believe that companies are protecting employees from Covid-19 sufficiently.

The negative trust rating of business during the Covid-19 crisis is further amplified by the assessment of CEOs.

Only 29% said CEOs are doing a good job responding to the pandemic. When compared to scientists (53%) and government leaders (45%) – yikes, there is a lot of work to be done to repair brand image with consumers.

Freedom of Information

A great contributor to millennials distrust is that brands are viewed as part of an unfavorable “establishment” rather than an individual entity.

“Nobody actually wants to be friends with a toothbrush; they want to be friends with a person.” – Matt Britton of MRY said.

To explain this concept, he references an ad campaign for Adobe Creative Cloud as an example.

Rather than the traditional advertising method and have Adobe tell everyone how great they are – they had real students use Adobe products and show their peers how great Adobe is.

The difference between being sold to and buying into a brand is in how the content is presented.

Advertising yells, “BUY THIS because it’s better, faster, stronger,” while content enriches a consumer’s life and positions the business as a reliable source of information.

Remember, millennials came of age during a freedom of information explosion, the internet.

The Internet provided consumers the ability to become their own researchers – and they are researching.

“Just do it” is the infamous Nike tagline.

“Just Google it” may be the Millennial’s tagline.

Invest time into conducting an audience analysis and combine this information with search data to discover what questions potential customers are searching for organically.

Provide this information freely.

Do not hide it behind a gateway, asking for something first. The point here is to provide more value than what you take.

This idea is so basic, give.

Helping people makes them want to help you. It is the law of reciprocity, talked about in popular business books by Cialdini and Bob Burg.

Attracting Millennials with Activism

The relationship between millennials and brands goes deeper than general disdain and distrust.

They start and stop relationships with companies based on the companies’ positive or negative impacts on society.

Trust is second only to price as a top brand attribute when deciding whether or not to make a purchase.

81% said they must be able to trust a brand to do the right thing.

Similarly, a study by IPSOS Connect found that 37% will stop purchasing from a brand because of its unethical behavior.

Be a visionary.

Millennials know brands have a louder voice and hold extreme clout. They want brands to educate their followers, influence what is acceptable behavior and advocate for systemic change.

An overwhelming 60% of consumers in the United States want brands to invest in addressing the root causes of racial inequality.

Brands with clear and simple messaging that actively invests resources into social and environmental efforts are beginning to solidify brand loyalty.

We’ve seen a number of visionary brand marketing in recent months.

“We’re not in advertising mode right now. “That’s the most important thing. We’re acting on a relevance and action kind of mode.” – Marcel Marcondes, CMO of Anheuser-Bush

Customers are so saturated by traditional advertising, the only way to stand out is to connect on a human level.

It is less about selling products and more about making it worth their time to interact with your brand.

Recession Minded

The effects that the Great Recession may have had on millennial spending habits was beginning to come into view when the pandemic covid-19 hit.

The pandemic has made such a

This primarily is going to affect investment type purchases like homes, stocks and retirement planning.

You will see them seek jobs that align more with values and passions than a focus on the paycheck.

Brand Example

Millennials combine their internet savvy with their strength in numbers to produce a collective online community activism known as “call-out culture.”

This is the act of calling someone out online, meant to hold individuals and companies accountable for their actions or inaction.

Millennials (and GenZ) are capable of producing a swell of social media outrage that can take a post or a tweet down, gather thousands of online petition signatures and even boycott a company.

A current brand example, would be the crumbling Victoria’s Secret empire.

It has only been 2.5 years (November 2018) since the famous Vogue interview with then chief marketing officer, Ed Razek.

“…It’s like, why doesn’t your show do this? Shouldn’t you have transsexuals in the show? No. No, I don’t think we should. Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy. It’s a 42-minute entertainment special. That’s what it is.

Razek went on to say why plus-sized models are not embraced by the brand.

“We attempted to do a television special for plus-sizes [in 2000]. No one had any interest in it, still don’t.”

Reaction to Razek’s remarks was swift and heated.

Notable LGBTQ models and plus-size stars took to social media to share their disappointment, encouraging a boycott of all VS products.

Shareholders wrote a fiery letter to CEO Les Wexner, urging him to update the brand’s image and switch up its predominantly male board of directors.

In the letter, Barington Group CEO James A. Mitarotonda pointed to the recent collapse in L Brands’ share price, including three years of sliding sales at Victoria’s Secret.

Note: Sales began sliding in 2016. A year after millennials became the largest population. In 2016, millennials were between the ages of 19 and 35.

“We recommend that the Company take swift action to improve the performance of Victoria’s Secret, by, among other things, correcting past merchandising mistakes and ensuring that Victoria’s Secret is communicating a compelling, up-to-date brand image that resonates with today’s consumers.”

During this social fire storm, a monitoring tool recorded and analyzed data surrounding Victoria’s Secret.

Figure 3. Mentions Over Time

Figure 3 shows a significant spike in online mentions of Razek after his interview was published. Mentions decrease for a week or two and reignite the conversation after the show aired on December 2nd.

Figure 4. Sentiment Analysis

Figure 4 as you would expect, people were not happy about Razek’s Vogue interview. The sentiment analysis shows an overwhelming number of negative mentions, 95.9%.

Here comes the part that trips up large brands.

Despite public outcry for change the company still had largely positive online sentiment.

After the 2018 show aired, brand mentions spiked on social media by 5,0475%.

79.5% of those mentions were positive, while only 8.5% were negative.

Figure 5. Brand Mention Sentiment by Channel

Figure 5. Shows the majority of brand mentions are positive.

Now, why would Victoria’s Secret continue to have a positive sentiment online amidst a PR crisis and years of declining sales?

The answer is the difference between real-life and online sentiment.

Online, people are mostly admiring the models. For some, watching the Victoria’s Secret fashion show became an annual tradition.

However, admiration does not directly translate into actually purchasing the product.

Especially if the admirers do not fit the image that the brand promotes.

The fall out has been swift. Victoria’s Secret fashion show was officially cancelled in November of 2019 in response to declining ratings.

And this spring, it’s private equity buyer, Sycamore Partners, said it is no longer interested in buying the company – yikes.

This is what happens when a brand is completely tone-deaf and fails to evolve with its new consumer base – (ahem Millennials).

Update: 2021 Planters Mr. Peanut Ad

You may remember Super Bowl 2020 when Planters killed off Mr. Peanut.

He’s back with an authentic statement.

Instead of spending $5 million on a Super Bowl Ad, Mr. Peanut is supporting people who are helping make the world “a little less nutty.”

The #anutabove campaign is the exact type of marketing that can rebuild brand loyalty and attract Millennials who demand brands put people before profits.

How to Measure ROI of Content Marketing

Kayle Larkin — Sat, 24 Oct 2020 21:20:10 +0000

Marketing managers often do not hit their target ROIs because their focus lies elsewhere.

Generally speaking, it is because they are stuck optimizing for vanity metrics: keyword rank, impressions, click through rate, cost per lead.

Hard truth, these metrics don’t really matter.

A #1 position or 100% click through rate does not really matter.

What matters is your return on investment (ROI.)

If you are measuring the value of an SEO campaign by multiplying users x average CPC – hard stop.

This is an inaccurate measurement because they’re two different audiences.

Users interact differently with Ads than they do with Organic search results. And, it only tells of the money saved, not the money generated.

Focus on what really matters and attribute a Goal Value per landing page.

We build custom reporting dashboards by internal linking silo, keyword grouping or content marketing campaign.

Powerful, effortless reports that prove content marketing and search engine optimization value.

Video: Measuring SEO and Content Marketing Value by Money Generated.

Example of one our our custom data studio dashboards that visualizes SEO and Content Marketing value by money made.

Note: Data used is sample data to protect the privacy of our clients.

Best Site Architecture for Search Engine Optimization

Kayle Larkin — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 21:21:57 +0000

In a Google Webmaster Hangout John Mueller answered a question regarding best site architecture.

For those who may not know, John Mueller is a webmaster trends analyst / developer advocate at Google, connecting the internal search engineering teams with the “real” world outside of Google.

You can find him on Twitter, YouTube and Reddit reaching out and answering questions posed by SEOs.

In the Webmaster Hangout video, Mueller stated that it was advisable to use a site architecture with meaningful categories.

“In general I’d be careful to avoid setting up a situation where normal website navigation doesn’t work.
So we should be able to crawl from one URL to any other URL on your website just by following the links on the page.”
Mueller further expanded on that idea:
“If that’s not possible then we lose a lot of context.
So if we’re only seeing these URLs through your sitemap file then we don’t really know how these URLs are related to each other and it makes it really hard for us to be able to understand how relevant this piece of content is in the context of your website.
So that’s one thing to… watch out for.”
John Mueller. “English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout.” YouTube, 08 Feb. 2019, https://youtu.be/bO7FQsCcbD8.

It seems like Mueller is discussing how a theme pyramid style structure (hierarchical site architecture) communicates semantic relatedness.

This could mean that Google looks at a website like a series of nodes and edges, where the nodes are the pages all interconnected by relevant topics

Just like in data crawling where a node is an entity and an edge is the relationship between entities – we need to think of a web page as the node and the link between pages as the edge.

What is a Pyramid Style Web Structure?

A pyramid style web structure was first written about in 2002 by the founder of Pubcon, Brett Tabke.

It is designed in a way to make good use of PageRank and link text while giving users a simple navigation.

The original article is not online anymore but I will summarize (with my personal notes) and you can read the expansion that still exists in the webmaster world forum.

Optimized Site Structure

Home Page

What are the most common textual links to the main domain?

In “Search Engine Theme Pyramids and Google,” Tabke uses an example website about widgets, called widget-world.com.

When creating a title for the homepage view the website with your favorite SEO tool that is able to show the anchor text by referring domains.

To continue our example, we find the majority of backlinks to widget-world.com use the word “widget” or “widgets.”

This tells us to title the home page, “Widget World, we sell Widgets.”

To reinforce this, internally link back to the home page from every page on the site, using the link text, Widget World, we sell Widgets.

Keep Important Phrases High in the Pyramid

It is true that PageRank is diluted with each additional link – but you get to choose which pages get more than their fair share of PageRank.

First determine the importance of keywords by looking at the competition for the words in relation to the profitability of the product.

Ie: Do more people search for (and buy) blue widgets, large widgets or fuzzy widgets?

The decision to categorize as /blue/fuzzy/large/, /blue/large/fuzzy/, /large/blue/fuzzy/, /large/fuzzy/blue/, /fuzzy/blue/large/ or /fuzzy/large/blue/ will depend on the competition for the words.

It is important to note that Google likes matching phrases.

If more people are searching for “fuzzy blue widgets” than “fuzzy blue widget” then the page title becomes:

“Fuzzy Blue Widgets from Widget World”
NOT “Fuzzy Blue Widget Collection from World of Widgets”

White Paper Test

This is an extremely simple way to check your work.

Take out a blank piece of paper.

Write the site structure down.

Does it make sense?

Would someone know what this website is about?

Can they easily reach each desired conversion within 3 clicks?

Separate Domains and SubDomains

Some web designers may put the second level (blue in this example) on a subdomain.

Leading us to the question, which is better for seo a subdomain or subfolders?

It depends (iconic SEO words.)

If the website can get more directory listings (or links) with a subdomain then a subdomain becomes ideal.

Otherwise it will not help.

Be careful of creating subdomains that link to each other as there is potential for a penalty.

Hub and spoke relationships between a main domain and subdomain seem to be ok.

An example would be if the color based subdomains are only linking to and from the central domain, but not between each other, this should be ok.

This article was an extension of the basic SEO checklist for WordPress websites.

Connect on LinkedIn or send me a note, if you’d like to see video tutorials covering this method.

Content Strategy using Conversion Probability Cohorts

Kayle Larkin — Fri, 18 Sep 2020 21:23:31 +0000

Content strategies should not start with search volume metrics or competitor research.

Ugly truth, SEO professionals know that search volume metrics are not accurate.

Yep, pretty crazy right?

Have you ever looked at a day-by-day chart of a keyword’s position?

Many factors come into play, including organic impression share.

Popular search volume tools, used by thousands of search marketers, take the total previous 12 months of historical data and divide by 12 to calculate search volume…you can imagine how inaccurate this will be.

The second step in a traditional content strategy (or audit) is a competitor analysis.

By performing a competitor analysis you are banking on the hope that your competitor has done the research that you should be doing.

And hope is not a strategy.

Not to mention, you are driving up the cost per click on yourself.

So, if you should not start with keyword volume or a competitor analysis then what should content strategies be based on?

Profits.

Begin with conversion probability.

Find your company’s pages with the best conversion probability.

These are the topics you want to invest in with Ads and search optimization.

Video: Content Strategy Using Conversion Probability Cohorts in Google Analytics

The first step will be setting up a conversion probability cohort within Google Analytics.

Set Up a Cohort Segment in GA

Open Google Analytics.
Select Audience ().
Select Behavior.
Select Conversion Probability.
Open Conversion Probability Report.
Click the icon to the far right within the % conversion probability bucket.
Name the conversion probability segments.
Enable the view that needs the segment available.
Click “Create Segment”.
Apply to your reports.

Once your cohort is created is time to apply this segment to your content strategy.

Apply to Content Strategy

Default Channing Grouping to Organic traffic source
Set Primary Dimension to “Source”
Advanced Filter to view the desired search engine
Add a Secondary Dimension of Landing Page
Sort by Revenue

The list of landing pages you have now is extremely valuable for the organic channel and the paid search channel.

From here you can tailor your ads on the various search engines to showcase the products and landing pages with the highest conversion probability per source.

And when it comes to organic search, simply cross reference this list with search console to learn which keywords are triggering these pages.

Using conversion probability cohorts to build a content strategy will improve the visibility and CTR of landing pages with the highest probability of conversion.

SEO Content Creation: Writing Blogs that Rank

Kayle Larkin — Tue, 16 Jun 2020 21:25:15 +0000

urrent search engine marketing strategies see an increased focus on quality content and an enhanced user experience.

Because organic search continues to be a leading source of traffic; a large part of providing user-friendly content means content that is easy to find. Creating a challenging task of how to satisfy what search engines need and what users want.

Integrate Search Engine Needs with User Needs

In order to write user-friendly content that ranks search engine thinking needs to be involved in every step of the content marketing process: audience research, writing, optimization, promotion and measurement.

This article shares our 5 steps to integrating search engine optimization with content marketing. This is how to write blogs that rank.

5 steps to SEO Content Creation:

1. Audience Research

How are users currently searching for the content you provide?

Understanding user needs and behaviors will help focus content creation efforts, preventing the wasted effort of creating content that doesn’t perform well.

Notice this stage is purposefully titled “audience research” because understanding how your audience searches and uses information online is more detailed then downloading a spreadsheet of keyword volume / competition density. As you research keywords, consider the impact of Google AI and how search engines are getting even better at conversational search. Proper keyword research puts yourself in your users’ shoes and understands how they are currently searching.

When audience research is done well this supercharges content creation by finding the “sweet spot.” The optimum balance between a user’s need, the product/service, and how users actively use the web.

2. Empower Content Writers

Many writers are aware of the value of keyword research and the positive impact ranking has for a business. While working with inbound marketing teams, I found that writers are generally motivated to write content that performs well in organic search.

Content writers will benefit from learning basic on-page optimization such as how to edit titles, header tags, meta tags, image tags and the page URL. When writers are empowered with SEO skills, content will is search engine friendly right out of the gate.

When SEO thinking is seamlessly integrated into the content writing workflow, search engine optimization is no longer seen as an obstacle, but important to the process of creating quality content.

3. Technical SEO

Empowering writers to make content naturally search friendly is a huge leap toward organic traffic success.

Having a technical SEO consultant review blog articles before publishing will ensure they are fully optimized for search. We look at the site as a whole and are able to build linking silos to support key “money pages,” and include the proper schema markup.

4. Publishing and Promotion

Creating a smooth publishing process is essential to success. This largely depends on how you well the SEO, social media and link building team work together.

Search Thinking: Questions to consider when Publishing an Article

Review internal link structures. Are articles linked to relevant pages and how.
Are the linking sites relevant to both the content and the keywords that content is being optimized for?
What sites link to your competitor’s similar pages and what is the DA?
Are there any relevant broken links?

Backlink activity continues to grow organically with time, be sure to create a spreadsheet and follow up periodically after content is published.

5. Measuring Return on Investment

Companies are seeking to invest in content at a record pace, putting the pressure on marketing agencies to show a profitable return on investment. Once the content is published, you need to know how it is performing against KPIs (key performance indicators.)

What is the average page rank in the target location?
What is the conversion rate for that article?
What is the monetary value of the page?

Tracking overall traffic from organic search is simply not enough. To determine if the organic search traffic is accomplishing business goals you need to know page rank, estimated keyword volume and conversion rate.

Be sure to have a plan of what to do with this data. What can be learned from actual performance that can be applied to future SEO and content creation efforts?

SEO-Centric Content Writing

A true content strategy is SEO-centric. Search engine thinking needs to integrate into every step of the content marketing process: audience research, writing, optimization, promotion and measurement.

Keywords are a core component to SEO, but SEO is not exclusively about keywords, and the use of keyword data has changed.

Successful inbound marketing strategies are built from a foundation of knowing what the audience wants. To stay competitive you also need to know how they look for what they want. Super charge content marketing strategies by integrating search engine needs with human and business needs. This is the key to successful campaigns.

Send us a note to discover what your user is searching for, how they are searching for it and who your competition is online.

Organizing Content Creation

Communication is becoming more involved. It’s very easy to become overwhelmed by the multitude of audiences and channels requiring your attention.

There is prospecting new customers, retaining current customers and converting those in the marketing funnel.

Should the content be text, graphic or video? Which social channels will be used? Are Ads necessary?

How can we ensure the content reaches the right audience at the right time? Do we need to continuously pay for Ads?

Thankfully, there are a number of editorial tips and tools to make creating optimized content simple.

Content Creation Organization Tips

Organize content ideas as they spark up in Evernote or Google Drive Folders.

These can be ideas that come from emails with clients, an interesting discussion in a social thread or something you were explaining to a colleague.

Folders should start with the broadest subject and niche down just as you would a website structure.

For example we may have the main folder as “Content Creation,” with sub-folders such as “Content Calendars,” “Content Writers,” “Content Marketing ROI,” etc.

Content Marketing Goals

Write with a specific goal in mind, do not create content for the sake of creating content.

Know your audience, know which channel they prefer to hear the information from and what unique language they use.

Aso, know what action you want them to take with this content, how does it lead the user closer to completing the end goal of purchasing a product or registering for your services.

The bulk of this step will be completed by your SEO team member. An SEO will map out a content plan based on what is needed to rank for the target key terms and when that content needs to be published into a content calendar.

Create a Content Calendar

Creating a content calendar based on user trends will be sure to get your brand in front of your audience at the time of year they’re looking for it.

The next step is adding in the content editorial information, who will be responsible for writing which pieces, editing, graphics, publishing, etc.

An editorial calendar saves you from creating content willy-nilly and finding out months later that the content isn’t ranking or that yikes – no one ever finished writing it.

There’s no wrong way to set up your editorial calendar, as long as it’s meeting your needs. Pick the one that’s right for your team:

Google Calendar with post titles written on each day
Excel or Google Doc with authors and post titles
Project management software (We love ClickUp.)

The content editorial tool doesn’t matter as long as your team is on board and the people who need to can easily access the document.

Hiring SEO Content Writers

Once the editorial calendar is laid out, you may realize that your current staff does not have the bandwidth to carry it out in an efficient manner.

At this point, you will need to hire content writers who understand how to integrate seo with user experience.

It’s easy to find people (and agencies) who claim to write optimized content – they’re everywhere.

Finding the best ones? That’s a daunting task many business owners face because you do not just need writers, you need exceptional SEO content writers.

So, how do you find exceptional seo content writers? There are a vast number of freelance platforms but your best bet is going to be contacting a contributor you enjoy at your favorite online publication or referrals from trusted colleagues.

When interviewing writers ask for a live writing example and have them walk you through the article. Look for the following basic SEO factors.

Is there a ‘focus keyword’?

Several factors come into play when trying to rank a web page, but your writer needs to know how to control things on the keyword side.

When reviewing their writing samples; check that the focus keyword is clear. It should be in the title of the article, opening paragraph and naturally throughout the content copy.

Are title tags and H tags used properly?

Essentially, your SEO writer should understand search engines and use title tags to understand what the website is about and how to use them to attract clicks from potential customers in search results.

What is the internal linking strategy?

Internal linking is a major key to search ranking so it is important that your writers have this in their set of onpage seo tools.

They should know how to create an internal linking silo connecting old and new articles in a cohesive manner to help fully communicate the topic.

Internal linking helps:

Communicate the relevance and value of your pages.
Demonstrate that your site contains in-depth content about the topic.
Ease of navigation — a high quality site is well-structured.

But also ensure they do it using proper anchor texts. There are two key anchor text elements:

[Anchor texts] should clearly explain where they’ll take your reader to.
[Anchor texts] shouldn’t be too long.

Is the appropriate Schema implemented?

An seo content writer should be well-versed in schema markup. Schema is a semantic vocabulary of tags (or microdata) that you can add to your HTML to improve the way search engines read and represent your page in SERPs.

Structured data can be used to mark up all kinds of items from news articles to FAQs to videos and more.

Does your writing candidate know the difference between article schema and blog schema?

Are they able to write cohesive long-form content?

According to 2020 research published by Backlinko the average Google first page result contains 1,447 words.

Is your candidate able to write engaging long-form content? In other words, can they keep people reading a page for several minutes? Is the content copy persuasive in leading the reader to the desired action.

Getting SEO content writers who have all the skills mentioned in this article are possible to find. And hiring them means higher search rankings for your content.

These writers are everywhere but here’s the thing — you get what you pay for.

SEO content writers are your best bet, but they’re not cheap. Before you open your wallet get a writing sample, ask the questions in this guide, and ensure you get what you pay for by measuring the campaign’s success.

Measuring SEO Content Success

A well-designed and optimized campaign will continue to bring quality leads to your website long after the invoice is paid.

In fact, for every dollar spent, content marketing generates 3X the leads you’d get with traditional marketing.

The content marketing agency or freelance writer you partner with should be able to quantify that feeling into a visually compelling report that measures the success of the content campaign.

Kayle Larkin covered this topic well in an article published in Search Engine Journal. For our purpose here we will focus on calculating the content ROI.

Content ROI is measured by dividing the goal value by the cost of your content marketing implementation: strategy, writers, search engine optimization, management, etc.

Content Investment

First, you need to know the cost of your investment. Add up the expense for each step involved in creating, launching, and reporting on a campaign.

For example:

$3,000 campaign strategy.
$5,000 for 4 articles, 1 landing page and 1 downloadable or quiz.
$2,000 search engine optimization + reporting.

Total Content Marketing Investment = $10,000 per campaign

Now, let’s calculate the return.

Return on Content Marketing

Jot down the average percent of leads (or downloads) that turn into a sale. And, what the lifetime value of that partnership is.

In other words, what is the average consumer’s profit margin over the course of their relationship with your company?

Number of Customers Example:

Campaign average monthly traffic: 5,000
Conversion rate to lead: 2%
- 100 leads
Closing conversion rate (lead to sale): 2%
Customers attributed to the campaign per month: 2

Customer Lifetime Value Example:

Average customer contract is $90,000
X average duration (3 years) = $270,000
Profit margin per client is 15%
Average customer lifetime value is $40,500

Projected Profit:

CLV x # of new customers = $81,000

Content Marketing ROI Formula

Content marketing ROI can be calculated by multiplying customer lifetime value by the number of new customers per month minus cost of investment divided by cost of investment.

Example Continued:

($40,500 x 2) – $10,000 / $10,000

($81,000 – $10,000) / $10,000

$71,000 / $10,000 = 7.1

The ROI for this content marketing campaign example is 710%.

How Soon Can You Expect to See the Return?

When content strategies are intentional and built on a solid audience analysis, you can begin seeing results as early as two weeks of indexing.

Larkin SEO has been providing search engine optimization services since 2008. Ensuring content marketing agencies are targeting the key phrases users are searching, on the platform users are engaging with.

To learn more about our seo content creation, send a note here.