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August was a big month for content marketing, with not one but two industry reports pointing
to mainstream adoption. Here's Brafton's August recap of content marketing updates and what
they could mean for your content marketing strategy.
On August 22, IDG Enterprise released its B2B Content Marketing Trends report.
84 percent of marketers say content production is on the rise, and the majority use more
than 10 different formats and content tactics they deem effective.
Marketers should start moving their strategies toward more diverse content offerings to appeal
to unique audiences at different phases in the purchase funnel. The most effective content
formats cited in the study include: white papers, online articles, video content.
The report found infographics are the fastest-rising content type, with use increasing 1.5 times
over last year.
IDG respondents say "compelling storytelling" around their business is the most effective
element of content.
The SEOmoz industry survey released in August also speaks to the rise of content marketing.
71 percent of respondents said content it is part of their marketing mix. 56 percent
say content demand is growing.
SEO was still most the most pervasive internet marketing strategy, with 92 percent naming
SEO part of their marketing mix.
Those looking for SEO tips got insights from Matt Cutts at August's SES San Francisco conference.
Cutts said transparency for marketers is a goal for Google - which explains the company's
newly released search query reports that help site owners understand SEO changes related
to technical issues and demand for site content.
Cutts also suggested Google's move for more transparency was connected to the updated
link warnings many marketers reportedly received over the course of the month.
Speaking of links, Cutt's said updates to Google's link scheme and webspam algorithm,
Penguin, could rock SEO results.
"Expect that the next few Penguin updates will take longer, incorporate additional signals,
and as a result will have more noticeable impact," he said.
It will be important to avoid webspam practices, and use white hat link building strategies
to stay ahead in search engine results pages.
Unlike Penguin, Panda has stabilized, but Google gave a minor tweak came on August 20
that impacted search results for roughly 1 percent of queries.
More noticeable change to results pages were issued by both Google and Bing, as the two
leading search engines are altering the number of results for more queries.
Moving away from the traditional 10 results, Google is delivering 7 results for more searches.
Bing, on the other hand, is still testing the ideal number of results for various queries
with no noticeable pattern.
The changes might not have implications for rankings, but they do reinforce that top organic
spots win more visibility.
Those are August's content marketing updates - stay tuned for next month.