<ol><li>Customer Case Studies</li><li>Humanize</li><li>Flex on Social Media</li><li>Webinars</li><li>Go Live!</li><li>Personalize Customer Communications</li><li>Crowdsource Concepts</li></ol>

7 Ways to Get Your Customers Involved in Your Content

Customer case studies provide the perfect avenue for you proudly to showcase your success.Storytelling is at the heart of the case study presentation. Providing real results about how your collaboration with your customers’ industry peers made a difference is a good place to start.

1. Customer Case Studies

You should always endeavor to make customers relate to your brand. You simply need to appeal by making them feel that you fully understand their needs.Consumer brands like Nike and Coca-Cola find it easier to find the dots to connect when it comes to mass appeal. The most important thing is to try.A good attempt consists of finding individuals in-house who are passionate about what the company represents.

2. Humanize

While social media was conceptualized to help people connect, the platforms also have a business edge waiting to be exploited. Having a social media presence can help you reach out to the 2.62 billion users on the various platforms.The end game here is not to have a large number of followers. You can leverage the power of social media by posing questions to followers and engaging with them. Once you pair this tactic with the provision of quality content, you’re in the box seat.

3. Flex on Social Media

This concept is somewhat akin to blogging. During the webinar sessions, the customers can share a couple of nuggets of wisdom that lead to success in their trades. Doing this allows them to share just how much they’ve been able to grow thanks to your efforts. In effect, they’ll be promoting you without really knowing it.Webinars are unique in that contributors can provide in-depth analysis and have live chat sessions.

4. Webinars

Excitingly, live video has announced its arrival on the social media scene with a bang. Getting to watch a celebrity while they’re live on social media presents consumers with a special moment to connect. “As a marketer, you should seek to work with influencers to promote your product or service.”

5. Go Live!

Various sensors in the product packaging are expected to provide retailers with a glimpse of how to better their inventories. Using this information, the retailers hope to be able to boost their customer experience offering.At present, this data has aptly been given the “digital voice” moniker. This is because it represents what consumers’ needs. The fact that it can be stored and analyzed for future use means that retailers will be able to continually improve their services.

6. Personalize Customer Communications

Consumers know what they want, how they want it and when they want it. Once you tap into their mindset, you can realize innumerable benefits. Through your social media and advertising channels, you can invite them to share their ideas. Your job is to sit back and spot talents and great money-making ideas.One company that has been able to successfully do this in recent times is Starbucks. The Frappuccino-makers conceptualized a microsite where users could share smart ideas.

7. Crowdsource Concepts

Customer engagement is enhanced when brands motivate customers to get involved in the content creation process. A good customer engagement strategy is necessary to bring about impressive and unprecedented customer loyalty levels.

The rise and rise of technology in recent years has brought an inherent need for brands to connect with their customers. Real connections lie at the epicenter…

Digital Marketing

7 Ways to Get Your Customers Involved in Your Content | Skillslab

From web development to branding and design, there are plenty of moving parts when launching a new website, but your SEO strategy shouldn’t be an afterthought.In fact, your SEO strategy should be one of the primary considerations before you even start your website. To take things a step further, the best case scenario would be that your website structure is fully built based on the SEO strategy you already have in place. Doing this from the get-go saves lots of headaches for things like web development, content formatting and design, URL structures, and more.

How to Prep Your SEO Strategy for a New Website

New websites have no indexed pages, don’t have backlinks, and thus also have no authority.As time presses on, Google starts to sniff out and apply changes as your website matures (assuming the SEO strategy is done right), and you’ll soon see that there are some other websites to contend with.A new website can start by focusing on longtail, low-competition keywords until it works its way up. Over time, with proper SEO strategies, your new website can grow to compete and even overtake the strongest of competition.

Why is SEO valuable for new websites?

The right domain name is associated with SEO equity, so aligning your company and brand name with your domain name is critical. When you have a new domain, you’re essentially starting your SEO from scratch.

1. Pick the right domain name (you can’t change it after!)

The average user won’t wait longer than three seconds for a website to load, so ensuring an excellent host is the first step of your SEO strategy.

2. Choose a high-speed website hosting provider

It’ll provide you with tons of that that you need to achieve SEO success. With Google Search Console, you can check things like:<ul><li>Page speed issues</li><li>Organic keywords that bring in website clicks</li><li>Your average click through rate (CTR)</li><li>Sitemap submission</li><li>Crawl and index errors</li><li>Page performance</li></ul>

3. Set up Google Search Console

When analyzing and making a list of your competitors consider these questions:<ul><li>How is their company similar to yours? How is it different? Check out their unique selling points.</li><li>What topics do they write about?</li><li>What keywords are they already ranking for?</li></ul>Every business has product and service competitors, but that doesn’t mean they have an SEO strategy that’s worth trying to outperform. The key here is to identify who sells similar stuff, writes similar content, and is piling up top keyword rankings. Those are your “SEO competitors”, and they’re who you want to beat.

4. Study your SEO competition

Keywords connect search queries to your content listed in the SERPs.Google’s goal is to use the keywords used in search queries to identify & present the most valuable information to searchers, aka “search intent”.Longtail, low competition keywords that exactly match what you’re selling, are your direct path to ensuring SEO has a major impact on your revenue & long-term profitability.Understanding search intent plays a major role with buyer journey stages, so ensuring that you’re crafting content that’s appropriate for buyers in the awareness, consideration, & decision stage is crucial.

5. Research keywords and create your keyword map

<ul><li>Prioritize sections of your keyword map: Such as product or service pages, as those have the highest likelihood to result in conversions and generate revenue for your business.</li><li>Optimize your content: Don’t forget to use keywords in the H1, URL, and metadata. </li><li>Track your keyword rankings: Once you publish content, keep an eye on how it’s performing. Content can move up over time as Google perceives your content to be trustworthy, you provide a good user experience, & your Domain Authority increases. </li><li>Post consistently: Publish at least 4 new website pages per month. </li></ul>

6. Build a strategic content calendar (and keep posting)

Putting keywords in your URL is super important for ensuring that your content is being set up properly.In the words of Rand Fishkin, “if there’s other keywords you haven’t used, or URLs you haven’t targeted with certain keywords, you do so during this process. This way you’re covering your tracks, making certain there are words and phrases that are covered early on.”

7. Ensure an optimized URL structure

Just like you go to check your core vitals at the doctor, you should do the same for your website to steer clear of any unnecessary issues.SEO is no longer just about putting keywords in the right places, it now also involves content format, design, page load speed, as well as user behavior — like time on page and bounce rates.In a nutshell, sustainable SEO success no longer ends with the click, you have to wholeheartedly satisfy your readers while they’re on the page in order to consistently rank.

8. Review Core Web Vitals and page experience

Accessibility simply means how easy it is for users (and search engines) to access the information on your website. This element is taken into consideration as a ranking factor. You want an accessible site for everyone, right? Of course, you’ll want to make sure that your content is being indexed and crawled correctly, but you can also take these steps to ensure that happens:<ul><li>Optimize alt text in images (for screen readers)</li><li>Use enough contrast (make sure your colors are easy on the eye)</li><li>Correctly label elements like buttons</li><li>Make your font size big enough to read</li></ul>

9. Observe accessibility

Whether for SEO or not, your website content shouldn’t just be published and sit there. The phrase “build it and they will come” is completely untrue when it comes to SEO.You have put in the effort to create your content, so it deserves to be shown to your audience. Think about where you already have a strong presence and harness that.

10. Promote

Your SEO strategy should be one of the primary considerations before you even start your website. Instead of fighting to make your website SEO-ready later on, start with this holistic SEO checklist for new websites and save yourself valuable time and resources

Discover the most interesting and off-beat ideas in marketing and advertising! 

Marketing & Advertising

Content pillars are an essential part of a brand’s content strategy and they serve a fundamental purpose: they provide a comprehensive, authoritative exploration of a topic that a reader can get everything they need on that subject in one place.

Building High-Performing Content Pillars

Pillar pages provide a substantive amount of information that can be divided into numerous formats such as ultimate guides, longreads, hub pages, & more. It is an opportunity to create a better user experience & be rewarded by search engines with high-level, authoritative content.The content pillar is the center of your content hub, where cluster pages are interlinked with the pillar. It can be dissected & repurposed into smaller pieces of content that you can promote to your audience - social media posts, emails, landing pages, gated content, or other channels where you market your brand.

What Are Content Pillars? What Is a Pillar Content Strategy?

Depending on your content marketing goals, there are three main types of pillar pages: the “Guide”, the “What Is”, and the “How-To.” We’ll look at examples of each type and see how they work.

What Are the Key Elements of Content Pillars? What Are the Examples?

For the “Guide” format, this webpage should provide an authoritative overview of the topic with various elements and pages that link to support it. The subtopics and supporting elements, whether they are blog posts, links to resources or products, related questions, FAQs, or videos are clustered around the pillar page’s main topic. Think of the pillar page as the “head” of your content marketing strategy, and cluster topics are the legs, arms, and torso that support your overall goal.

The Guide

Long-form blogs can be excellent candidates for the “What Is” pillar page that covers a subject in great depth. If the subject matter is complex enough, you can break down the themes or subtopics into chapters and segments.

The What Is

The How-To can be a powerful content asset for your brand, and an opportunity for you to position yourself as a subject matter expert. It can also be the ideal format if you’re targeting an audience with informational and transactional intents.

The How-To

As the great Sun Tzu famously said, “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” While we are not discussing the art of war here, the importance of strategic thinking in content creation is essential in achieving the desired outcome of any marketing effort. Content without structure and purpose will ultimately fail for your brand, your customers, and search engines.

How Do You Develop a Pillar Content Strategy for a Website? 

Identifying the core topic & keyword should both satisfy the user intent as much as it should attract search engine algorithms.Identify the primary keyword or topic, & make sure it’s substantial enough to build a hub around. Look at:<ul><li>Search volume</li><li>Competitiveness of the topic</li><li>Relevancy to the audience & the product offering</li><li>Potential of becoming evergreen content</li></ul>Analyze SubtopicsCome up with a list of subtopics to form the cluster pages & create the structure for the pillar page. The pillar page should touch base on all of these subtopics & link to the relevant articles uncovering them in detail.

1. Identify your core topic and keyword

Performing a content audit of the website will help determine whether you already have existing pages that could be modified, repurposed, & optimized for the pillar content strategy, & help identify whether you already have a candidate for a pillar page, or better yet—that you already have plenty of articles that could be restructured into a central pillar.By updating and optimizing your existing content, you can avoid the pitfalls of cannibalization or duplicate content on your website.The audit process allows you to re-evaluate your internal linking structure.

2. Audit the Existing Content on Your Website

If you’ve identified a topic that you want to become an authority on, chances are you have competition vying for the same space. Next, you’ll want to do competitive content analysis on what their content marketing looks like to identify gaps, opportunities, & other areas for pillar content.One of the best ways to leapfrog the competition in search is to find areas where you can improve what’s already existing & build a more authoritative guide. By analyzing the subtopics covered by your competitors & finding content gaps, you’ll be able to build a better content pillar.

3. Take a Look at the Competition

Map out the Structure of Your Pillar PageThe next step is to collect all possible questions your pillar page will strive to answer and use them to design the structure of the article.

4. Create Your Content Pillar

Interlinking your cluster content to your pillar page is an essential part of the information architecture. If you want your pillar content to rank, you’ll need to optimize your links (both internal and backlinks from external sources) to start getting traction.Remember that the pillar page is the hub where the user can get access to all the information they’re seeking all in one place. Additionally, since you want to promote your pillar content as an authoritative resource, you’ll want to have a strategy for acquiring backlinks from high-quality sources, too.

5. Interlink, Promote, and Distribute Your Pillar Content

Content pillars are an essential part of a brand’s content strategy and they serve a fundamental purpose: they provide a comprehensive, authoritative exploration of a topic that a reader can get everything they need on that subject in one place.

Explore this guide to learn what are content pillars, how to successfully build them in your company, and what are some of the best industry examples.

Building High-Performing Content Pillars: Your Ultimate Guide

Digital marketing has a long list of marketing specialisations: social media marketing, search engine optimisation, email marketing, marketing automation and more. There are specific skills that are fundamental to all of them. The sooner you learn these universal skills, the better because those skills act as investments.

Digital Marketing Specialisations

Metrics, graphs, trends, statistics, and predictive analytics depend on data. Therefore, marketers should be able to do the following very well: <ol><li>Report on the past – For example, calculating the conversion rate from trial signups to paid subscriptions.</li><li>Analyse the present – For example, calculating the lifetime value of customers.</li><li>Predict the future – For example, what type of message can increase your chances of converting the user.</li><li>Compare with competitors – For example, what keywords your competitors target that you do not.</li></ol>

Data literacy

Even if you don't specialise in a particular marketing channel, you need to understand how they work.<ul><li>You will possibly need to work on the intersection of various digital channels.</li><li>Your target audience will most likely hang out on different websites and platforms.</li></ul> Brands need to embrace omnichannel marketing to ensure a seamless experience. It means digital marketers need to become experts at some of them but understand all of them.

Understanding different marketing channels

Only video marketing and podcast marketing don’t utilize text as the main medium but even videos and podcasts start as text. Everyone can learn to write well. This job isn’t about creating the next blockbuster novel. It’s about writing clearly and convincingly. To get you started, here’s a <a href="https://www.julian.com/guide/write/intro">great, free guide on writing by Julian Shapiro</a>.

Copywriting

Marketing technology, or martech, makes digital marketing possible. Better tools can make you more effective. Many essential marketing tools have free trials or free versions. In addition, they often have certification programs. For example,<ul><li>Doing SEO with zero budget, you can get <a href="https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools">Ahrefs Webmaster Tools</a> for free.</li><li>Google Analytics has a <a href="https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6367342?hl=en#zippy=%2Cin-this-article">demo account</a> with prefilled data and a <a href="https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/">free certification program</a>.</li><li>You'll also need to be acquainted with Google Sheets. Browse through <a href="https://sheetsformarketers.com/">Sheets for Marketers</a> to see what kinds of reports you can build with this free tool.</li></ul>

Getting around essential digital marketing tools

Design can show the user where to click or convey what your brand is about. To get better at it, you should:<ul><li>Understand the basic <a href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/10-principles-of-effective-web-design/">web design principles</a>.</li><li>Learn how you can create better experiences for your users with <a href="https://www.uxpin.com/studio/ebooks/ux-design-for-startups/">UX design</a>.</li><li>Follow <a href="https://designmodo.com/web-design-trends-2022/">web design trends</a>. </li><li>Start experimenting with design software such as Canva, Genially, UXPin, Figma and Webflow. Marketers design graphics for content, ads, infographics, presentations,  wireframes, and, sometimes, entire landing pages.</li></ul>

Basic design skills

Assertiveness is the ability to express your opinions and know how to stand up for your beliefs. It’s the art of saying “no” in the workplace without being hostile or aggressive. Start practising assertiveness in some typical, everyday life situations.<ul><li>Speak up when you’d rather watch a movie at home instead of going out.</li><li>Let your partner know you won’t be able to do a specific errand without offering a detailed backstory.</li><li>Visit a new restaurant and ask for a table that’s in a quieter area or near a window.</li></ul>

Assertiveness

Work on these skills:<ul><li>Active listening – Be open-minded and empathetic toward others.</li><li>Fostering positive feelings – S<a href="https://hbr.org/2008/09/social-intelligence-and-the-biology-of-leadership">tudies</a> have shown that this is crucial to effective leadership.</li><li>Observe managers in your workplace and try to identify how their actions and words affected others – Did they inspire people to do better work? Do people feel comfortable sharing opinions around them? What would you do differently?</li></ul>

Social intelligence

Critical thinking can be seen as healthy skepticism. It's about not accepting things at face value when they lead to important decisions. To develop an objective and independent opinion, you need to be able to question ideas to uncover<ul><li>the kind of argument or evidence that supports an idea and</li><li>what a given idea leads to.</li></ul>

Critical thinking

There’s always something new to learn. You'll need to stay up to date with new technologies, new tactics, new philosophies, Google’s algorithm updates, industry regulations, etc. Optimise information gathering by following content curations, e.g., newsletters curated by industry pros.

Curiosity (Continuous learning)

The market and your goals may frequently change in marketing. You may work on a blog post one day and be doing conversion optimisation experiments on the next. Acknowledge that things can change quite fast in this type of work. Reacting to change is part of the game.

Adaptability

Ethics is an area where a person should make conscious decisions. It is a marathon. No one will want to work with you if you're not reliable, honest and respectful.

Strong work ethic

The recent popularity of growth marketing - a <a href="https://ahrefs.com/blog/types-of-marketing/">type of marketing</a> - is characterised mainly by prioritising data over opinions. The source of that data is often experimentation. Performing experiments involves devising hypotheses and designing experiments to validate them. A useful framework to perform marketing experiments:<ul><li>Analyze – Uncover areas of growth opportunities.</li><li>Ideate – Generate ideas on how to improve the focus area and turn them into an idea pipeline</li><li>Prioritize ideas by using the <a href="https://www.productplan.com/glossary/ice-scoring-model/">ICE scoring model</a> </li><li>Test – Conduct the experiment and analyze the results</li></ul>

Performing experiments

In marketing, there is always pressure to get results. To get better at coping with pressure, pay attention to:<ul><li>Assertiveness</li><li>Learning to recognise and enjoy other things in life</li><li>Healthy diet</li><li>Realising that perfect is not always better</li></ul> Too much pressure in digital marketing is common, but there’s a point where pressure stops being your problem and starts to be the problem of the person putting pressure on you. Sometimes, the only way to cope with it is to find another job.

Coping with pressure

Sooner or later, your job may require something basic like inserting a tracking tag or editing some lines in your WordPress template. Other times, you may be required to do data analysis for customer databases with SQL or Python. It’s best to acquire knowledge by completing courses.<ul><li><a href="https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn/data-analysis-with-python/">Data Analysis With Python</a> (free)</li><li><a href="https://pythonformarketers.com/courses/replace-excel/">Python for Marketers</a> (free)</li><li><a href="https://youtu.be/7S_tz1z_5bA">MySQL Tutorial for Beginners</a> (beginner level is free)</li><li><a href="https://www.codecademy.com/catalog/subject/for-business">Codeacademy’s Coding for Business</a> (free + paid)</li></ul>

Understanding code

Developing skills needs time. Developing these skills is time well spent.

Stashed ideas

14 Universal Digital Marketing Skills You Can’t Ignore

Inclusive content is any form of media (such as a blog post, a video, an image, etc.) that speaks to a broad and diverse audience without excluding anyone.When it comes to blog posts, that means the words do not hurt or divide, the images represent as many different people as possible, and the structure makes the content as accessible as possible (through clear fonts, image alt tags, etc). Inclusive content is NOT a political statement or a personal take on social justice topics.

What Does “Inclusive Content” Mean?

There’s a lot more to gain when you write in a way that includes as many people as possible.For one, it can grow your business. You significantly widen your target markets by opening the door to previously marginalized communities.At the same time, it raises the profile of your brand with everyone. More than half of consumers want to purchase from companies that prioritize diversity and inclusion, according to a report by Zendesk.Millennials are even more loyal to inclusive brands. Seventy percent of them will choose a brand that demonstrates inclusion in its marketing efforts.

What Are the Benefits of Inclusive Content?

Inclusive content sells better, too.The Psychology of Inclusion and the Effects in Advertising by Microsoft Advertising found that the purchase intent of the most inclusive ad in their study was 13 percent higher than the next most appealing ad and 23 percent higher than the average.Finally, creating inclusive content demonstrates your brand’s commitment to change. Fail to do so, and you’ll look like a brand unwilling or unable to learn or grow (or worse, paint your brand as one that doesn’t care about social issues).

What Are the Benefits of Inclusive Content? (contd.)

Having a target audience may help narrow your focus and improve your PPC campaigns. But a customer persona rarely fits every potential customer. If the language & imagery you use only appeals to a specific demographic, you risk alienating potential new customers.Writing for a wider audience will make your content more thoughtful & appealing. Most marketing efforts still lack diversity & inclusivity, esp. when it comes to content marketing. Just identifying & fixing your blind spots can breathe new life into your efforts, & help you build important relationships with a variety of stakeholders.

1. Look for Blind Spots

Start by making your entire site accessible.Ensure the following:<ul><li>screen readers can interact with every page on the site but esp. your blog. Alt text on the images & captions on videos is relevant. & not just used to stuff keywords into your article. Screen readers rely on alt text or captions to describe pictures, videos & other visual content.</li><li>the website is navigatable by keyboard</li><li>reduce excessive motion in design elements</li><li>the site doesn’t ignite physical triggers</li><li>improve the website’s color contrast</li><li>the site works with all browsers and accessibility tools</li></ul>

2. Make Your Content Accessible

The words you use matter. They have the power to inspire, but they also have the ability to divide and exclude. When it comes to creating inclusive content you have to be careful about the language you choose.Adopting gender-neutral language should be the bare minimum. Instead of words like “mankind” and “salesman”, use “humankind” and “salesperson.” You should also avoid making gender-based assumptions. Politicians are not always male. A parent is not necessarily a woman. A gender-neutral pronoun like “they” is the safest bet in these scenarios.

3. Use Inclusive Language

Encourage and embrace feedback. The more you discuss your work openly & invite readers to have their say, the quicker you can start creating genuinely inclusive content.It’s not just your audience you should consult, however. A sensitivity reader can be a huge help when reviewing your writing for poor phrasing and insensitive language.

4. Ask for Audience Input and Additional Help

Stock images are known to often feature middle-class caucasians. It’s not enough to just write in an inclusive manner. People will identify with your company & product more when they see people like themselves included in your content marketing efforts. It also makes it clear that you are writing for them specifically.Make your blog posts more exclusive by including photos of people from different backgrounds. That can include people of color, non-traditional families, & people of different sizes & abilities.

5. Use Diverse Images

The format and structure of your writing can also exclude readers. Flowery language and complex clauses aren’t going to cut it if you’re writing for laypeople.Instead:<ul><li>Use short words & short sentences.</li><li>Keep paragraphs short and use lots of subheadings to make it easy for readers to skim your content.</li><li>Avoid industry jargon, abbreviations, & other specialized terms that the average consumer won’t understand.</li><li>Use bullet points to break down lists of information.</li><li>Write in the active advice to keep your writing as concise and clear as possible.</li></ul>

6. Write in an Accessible Way

The last thing you’d ever want to do is exclude a person or group of people through your marketing. Yet many marketers and writers have made this mistake. Divisive & exclusive words & phrases have become so baked into our language that many of us don’t realize when we use them or the harm they cause. This article, explains what inclusive content really means, why you need to be creating it, & how to do it in a meaningful way.

7 Ways to Get Your Customers Involved in Your Content | Skillslab

How to Prep Your SEO Strategy for a New Website

Building High-Performing Content Pillars: Your Ultimate Guide

14 Universal Digital Marketing Skills You Can’t Ignore

How to Create Inclusive Content for Everyone

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